The Catholic World, Vol. 03, April to September, 1866

by Various

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

LIFE OF THE MOST REVEREND JOHN HUGHES, D.D., First Archbishop of New York. With Extracts from his Private Correspondence. By John R. G. Hassard. Pp. 519. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1866.

Mr. Hassard is one of our most promising writers. He contributed several excellent articles to "Appleton's Cyclopaedia," edited "The Catholic World" with judgment and good taste for several months at its first establishment, and since that time has occupied the position of editor of the Chicago "Republican." This is his first literary essay of serious magnitude, and a more delicate or difficult task could not well have been confided to his hands. He has fulfilled it with care, thoroughness, and impartiality. The style in which it is written is remarkably correct and scholarly, and exhibits a thorough acquaintance with the English language as well as a pure and discriminating taste in the choice of words. It is a kind of style which attracts no attention to itself or to the author, but is simply a medium through which the subject-matter of the work is presented to the reader's mind; and this, in our view, is no small merit. The subject-matter itself is prepared and arranged in a methodical, accurate, and complete manner, which leaves nothing in that regard to be desired. The work belongs to that class of historical compositions which chronicle particular events and incidents, relate facts and occurrences as they happened, and leave them, for the most part, to make their own impression. The author has endeavored to take photographs of his illustrious subject, and of the scenes of his private and public life, but not to paint a picture or his character and his times. Those who are already familiar with the scenes, the persons, and the circumstances brought into view in connection with the personal history of the archbishop, and who were personally acquainted with himself, could ask for no more than is furnished in this biography. We have thought, however, in reading it, that other readers would miss that filling up and those illuminating touches from the author's pen which would make the history as vivid and real to their minds as it is made to our own by memory. A graphic and complete view of the history of the Catholic Church, so far as Archbishop Hughes was a principal actor in it, and of the results of his labors in the priesthood and episcopate, is necessary to a just estimate of his ecclesiastical career, is still a desideratum. In saying this, we do not intend to find fault with Mr. Hassard for not supplying it. He has accomplished the task which he undertook in a competent manner, and produced a work of sterling merit and lasting value. We could wish that the biographies of several other distinguished prelates, of the same period, might be written with the same minuteness and fidelity, and, above all others, those of Bishop England and Archbishop Kenrick. Very few men could endure the ordeal of passing through the hands of a biographer so coldly impartial as Mr. Hassard. But those who are able to pass through it, and who still appear to be great men, and to have lived a life of great public service, may be certain that their genuine, intrinsic worth will be recognized after their death, and not be thought to be the coinage of an interested advocate, or the furbished counterfeit whose glitter disappears in the crucible. Moreover, the reader of history will be satisfied that he gets at the reality of things, and the writer of history that he has authentic data and materials on which to base his judgments of men and events. No doubt this species of history would disclose many defects and weaknesses, many human infirmities and errors, in the individuals who figure in it, and lay bare much that is unsightly and repulsive in the state of things as described. This is true of all ecclesiastical history. Truth dissipates many romantic and poetic illusions of the imagination, which loves to picture to itself an ideal state of perfection and ideal heroes far different from the real world and real men. Nevertheless, it manifests more clearly the heroic and divine element really existing and working in the world and in men, and manifesting itself especially in the Catholic Church. [{141}] We believe, therefore, that the divinity of the Catholic religion would only be more clearly exhibited, the more thoroughly its history in the United States was brought to light. We believe, also, that the character and works of its valiant and loyal champions will be the more fully vindicated the more dispassionately and impartially they are tried and judged.

A calm consideration of the condition of Catholicity, thirty-five or forty years ago in this country, in contrast with its present state, will enable us to judge of the work accomplished by the men who have been the principal agents in bringing about the change. Let us reflect for a moment what a difference it would have made in the history of the Catholic religion here, if some eight or ten of the principal Catholic champions had not lived; and we may then estimate the power and influence they have exerted. Leaving aside the numerical and material extension of the Catholic Church under the administration of its prelates and the clergy of the second order, we look at the change in public sentiment alone, and the vindication of the Catholic cause by argument at the bar of common reason, where it has gained a signal argumentative triumph over Protestantism and prejudice, through the ability and courage of its advocates and the soundness of their cause. The principal men among the first champions of the Catholic faith who began this warfare were, in the Atlantic states, Dr. Cheverus, Dr. England, Dr. Hughes, and Dr. Power. We speak from an intimate and perfect knowledge of the common Protestant sentiment on this matter, and with a distinct remembrance of the dread which these last three names, and the veneration which the first of them, inspired. Every one who knows what the almost universal sentiment of the Protestant community respecting the Catholic religion and its hierarchy was, is well aware that it was a sentiment of intense abhorrence mingled with fear. It was looked upon as a system of preternatural wickedness and might, and yet, by a strange inconsistency, as a system of utter folly and absurdity, which no reasonable and conscientious man could intelligently and honestly embrace. The priesthood were regarded as a species of human demons, and those among them who possessed extraordinary ability, were believe to have a diabolical power to make the worse appear the better reason and the devil an angel of light. Those whose sanctity was so evident that it broke down all prejudice, as Bishop Cheverus, were supposed not to be initiated into the mysteries of the Catholic religion, but to be at heart really Protestants, blinded to the errors of their system by education, and duped by their more cunning associates, like "Father Clement" in the well-known tale of that name. The Catholic clergy were shunned and ostracised, looked on as outlaws and public enemies, worthy of no courtesy and no mercy. Their religion was regarded as unworthy of a hearing, a thing to be scouted and denounced, trampled upon like a noxious serpent and crushed, if possible. Contempt would be the proper word to express the common estimation of it, if there had not been too much fear and hatred to make contempt possible. Its antagonists wished and tried to despise it and its advocates, but could not. Every sort of calumny and vituperation was showered upon them by the preachers, the lecturers, and the writers for the press who made Catholicity their theme. Some, perhaps many, honorable exceptions, which were always multiplying with time, must be understood, particularly in Boston, Baltimore, and Charleston. John Hughes, the poor Irish lad, who had knelt behind the hay-rick on his father's farm to pray to God and the Blessed Virgin to make him a priest, who had come to this country with no implement to clear his way to greatness but the pick and shovel which he manfully grasped, was one of those who were chosen to lead the van in the assault against this rampart of prejudice. That he vanquished his proud and scornful antagonists is an undoubted fact. Beginning his studies, as a favor reluctantly conceded to him on account of his importunity, at a later period than usual, with a grammar in one hand and a spade in the other, he was first a priest, faithful to his duty among many faithless, courageous and enterprising among many who were timid, strong among many weak, staunch and unflinching in a time of schism, scandal, and disaster, and bold enough not only to lay new foundations for the church of Philadelphia, which others have since built upon, while the old ones were half crumbled, and to repress mutiny and disorder in the ranks of his own people, but to [{142}] attack, single-handed, the enemies who were exulting over the discord and feebleness which they thought foreboded the disruption of the Catholic body. This, too, almost without encouragement, and with no hearty support from those who were older and more thoroughly trained and equipped in the service than himself. He became the coadjutor and successor of the very man who had refused his first application to be allowed to purchase the privilege of studying under him, by his daily labor. He died the metropolitan of a province embracing all New York, New Jersey, and New England, and including eight suffragan bishoprics with more than a million of Catholics; confessedly the most conspicuous man among his fellow-bishops in the view of Catholics and Protestants alike, one of the most trusted and honored of his compeers at the See of Rome, well known throughout Catholic Christendom, a confidential adviser and a powerful supporter of the United States government, a recognized illustrious citizen of the American republic as well as one of the ornaments of his native country, with all the signs and tributes of universal honor and respect at his funeral obsequies which are accorded to distinguished personal character or official station. Let the most severe and impartial critic apply his mind to separate, in this distinguished and useful career, the personal and individual force impelling the man through it, from the concurrence of Divine Providence, the aid of favorable circumstances and high position, the supernatural power of the character with which he was marked, and of the system which he administered, and the strength and volume of the current of events on which he was borne, and, if we mistake not, he will find something strong enough to stand all his tests. An ordinary man might have worked his way into the priesthood, fulfilled its duties with zeal and success, attained the episcopal and metropolitan dignity, won respect by his administration, and left a flourishing diocese to his successor. But an ordinary man could never have gained the power and influence possessed by Archbishop Hughes. Our early and original impressions of his remarkable power of intellect and will have been strengthened and fixed by reading his biography, and the greatness of the influence which he exerted in behalf of the Catholic religion is, to our mind, established beyond a doubt. His chivalrous and valiant combat with John Breckinridge, at Philadelphia, was a victory not only decisive but full of results. We know, from a distinct remembrance of the opinions expressed at the time, that Mr. Breckinridge was generally thought, by Protestants, to have been discomfited. We have heard him speak himself of the affair with the tone of one who had exposed himself to a dangerous encounter with an enemy superior to himself, for the public good, and barely escaped with his life. We remember taking up the book containing the controversy, from a sentiment of curiosity to know what plausible argument could possibly be offered for the Catholic religion, and undergoing, in the perusal, a revolution of opinion, which rendered a return to the old state of mind inherited from a Puritan education impossible. This we believe is but an instance exemplifying the general effect of the controversy upon candid and thinking minds, not hopelessly enslaved to prejudice. We remember hearing him preach in the full vigor of his intellectual and physical manhood, in the cathedral of New York, soon after his consecration, and the impression of his whole attitude, countenance, manner of delivery, and cast of thought is still vivid and unique. Those who have seen the archbishop only during the last fifteen years, have seen a breaking-down, enfeebled, almost worn-out man, incapable of steady, vigorous exertion, and oppressed by a weight of care and responsibility which was too great for him. To judge of his ability fairly it is necessary to have seen and heard him in his prime, before ill-health had sapped his vigor. And to appreciate the best and most genial qualities and dispositions of the man, it is necessary to have met him in familiar, unrestrained intercourse, apart from any official relation and away from his diocese--or, at least, in those times when all official anxieties and cares of government were put aside and his mind relaxed in purely friendly conversation. That he was a great man, a true Christian prelate, and accomplished a great work in the service of the church, of his native countrymen, and of the country of his adoption, is, we believe, the just verdict of the most competent judges and of the public at large upon the facts of his life. He will not be forgotten, for his life and acts are too closely [{143}] interwoven with public history and his influence has been too marked to make that possible. We trust that those who enjoy the blessings of a securely and peacefully established Catholic Church will not be disposed to forget the men who, in more troubled times, have won by their valor the heritage upon which we have entered. The record of their lives and labors is of great value, and this one, in particular, is worthy of the perusal of every Catholic and every American, and has in it a kind of romantic charm and dramatic grouping which does not belong to the life of one who has been more confined to the seclusion of study or the ordinary pastoral routine.

We regret the mention made of Dr. Forbes's defection, and the publicity which is again given to painful matters which had become buried in oblivion. It appears to us that, as Dr. Forbes has not publicly assailed either the church or the late archbishop, it was unnecessary to allude to him in any way, and it would have been more generous to have suppressed the remarks made in the archbishop's private correspondence. The mechanical execution of the work is in good style, and we recommend it to our readers as necessary to every Catholic library.

AN AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. By Noah Webster, LL.D. Thoroughly Revised and Greatly Enlarged and Improved, by Chauncey A. Goodrich, D.D., Late Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, and also Professor of the Pastoral Charge in Yale College, and Noah Porter, D.D., Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics in Yale College. Royal quarto, pp. 1840. Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Meiriam. 1866.

There have been published, within the last twenty-five years, several editions of "Webster's Dictionary," but the present one, the title of which is given above, seems to be the crowning effort of dictionary making. It surpasses all other editions of the same work both in its typography, its illustrations--some 3,000 in number--and its philological completeness. "Webster's Dictionary" has always been of high authority in this country, and is now held in great repute in England, where it is accepted by several writers as the best authority in defining the English language. The present edition is a most beautiful one, and contains all the modern words which custom has engrafted upon our language. It also contains, in its pronouncing table of Scripture proper names, a supplementary list of the names found in the Douay Bible, but not in King James's version. In fact, care has been taken to make this edition as free as possible from partisan and theological differences in regard to the definitions of certain words which heretofore got a peculiarly Protestant twitch when being defined. The publishers deserve great praise for the manner in which they have done their portion of the work; it is a credit and an honor to the American press.

THE CRITERION; OR, THE TEST OF TALK ABOUT FAMILIAR THINGS: A Series of Essays. By Henry T. Tuckerman. 12mo., pp. 377. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1866.

Mr. H. T. Tuckerman is a man of letters, and we thought he would not be likely to put his name to anything discreditable to an enlightened author; but, to judge from many things in the above production, we think he has missed his vocation, and would find more appropriate employment as a contributor to the publications of the American Tract Society, or the magazine put forth, monthly, by the "Foreign and Christian Union." Else, why is every pope "shrewd," every priest an "incarnation of fiery zeal?" why "the lonely existence and the subtle eye of the Catholic?" why "the medical Jesuit, who, like his religious prototype, operates through the female branches, and thus controls the heads of families, regulating their domestic arrangements, etc.?" why "Bloody Mary" and "Romish?" why is "superstition the usual trait of Romanists?" and this: "One may pace the chaste aisles of the Madeleine, and feel his devotion stirred, perhaps, by the dark catafalque awaiting the dead in the centre of the spacious floor; and then what to him is the doctrine of transubstantiation?" (!) We are truly sorry to see these indications of a spirit with which we think the author will find very little sympathy outside the clique of benighted readers of the publications above quoted.

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CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. By C. J. Vaughan, D.D., Vicar of Doncaster. 18mo., pp. 269. Alexander Strahan, London and New York. 1865.

This beautiful little volume contains twelve sermons, or rather religious essays, written in a pleasing style, but altogether too lengthy and too exhaustive in character. We have no doubt but that the author is a good preacher, and if these essays were ever preached by him as sermons, they were listened to with pleasure. But in their present shape, enlarged, systematized, and--shall we say--almost too carefully prepared for the press, they are a little tiresome. One feels in reading them how much the naturalness, as well as the elegance of diction, is marred by the vague evangelical phraseology, "coming to Christ," "laying hold on Christ," etc., which occurs so constantly in these pages. The author, being a Low Evangelical Churchman, gives us, of course, "justification by faith" and the Calvinistic view of the Fall. Yet, in the latter half of the volume he seems to speak more like one who imagines that man has something to do for his own justification, and takes a higher and nobler view of humanity. We give the following passage from the last sermon, entitled "Cast out and found," as a good specimen of what we should call practical preaching. "When Jesus found him, he said unto him. Dost thou believe on the Son of God? 'Thou!' The word is emphatic in the original, 'Thou--believest thou?' We are glad to escape into the crowd, and shelter ourselves behind a church's confession. But a day is coming, in which nothing but an individual faith will carry with it either strength or comfort. It will be idle to say in a moment of keen personal distress, such as probably lies before us in life and certainly in death and in judgment, 'Every one believes--all around us believe--the world itself believes in the Son of God:' there is no strength and no help there: the very object of Christ's finding thee and speaking to thee is to bring the question home, 'Dost thou believe?' A trying, a fearful moment, when Christ, face to face with man's soul, proposes that question! Perhaps that moment has not yet come to you. You have been fighting it off. You do not wish to come to these close quarters with it. The world does not press you with it. The world is willing enough that you should answer it in the general; and even if you ever say, 'I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,' it shall be in a chorus of voices, almost robbing the individual of personality, and making 'I' sound like 'we.' But if ever your religion is to be a real thing, if ever it is to enable you to do battle with a sin, or to face a mortal risk, if ever it is to be a religion for the hour of death, or for the day of judgment, you must have had that question put to you by yourself, and you must have answered it from the heart in one way. Then you will be a real Christian, not before!"

The book is elegantly got up in the style and care for which the publisher is noted.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

From P. O'Shea, 27 Barclay street. New York: Nos. 18, 19, and 20 of Darras' History of the Church.

From P. Donahoe, Boston: The Peep o' Day; or, John Doe, and the Last Baron of Crana. By the O'Hara Family. 12mo., pp. 204 and 243.

From Hon. Wm. H. Seward. Secretary of State, Washington, his speech on the "Restoration of the Union," delivered in New York, Feb. 22, 1866.

From Peter F. Cunningham, Philadelphia: The Life of Blessed John Berchmans, of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the French. With an Appendix, giving an account of the Miracles after Death which have been approved by the Holy See. From the Italian of Father Boreo, S.J. 1 vol. 12mo., pp. 358.

From John Murphy & Co., Baltimore: The Apostleship of Prayer. A Holy League of Christian Hearts united with the Heart of Jesus, to obtain the Triumph of the Church and the Salvation of Souls. Preceded by a Brief of the Sovereign Pontiff Plus IX., the approbation of several Archbishops and Bishops and Superiors of Religious Congregations. By the Rev. H. Ramiero, of the Society of Jesus. Translated from the latest French Edition, and Revised by a Father of the Society. With the approbation of the Most Rev. Archbishop Spalding. 12mo., pp. 393.

From Kelly & Piet, Baltimore: Life in the Cloister; or, Faithful and True. By the author of "The World and Cloister." 12mo., pp. 224.

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THE CATHOLIC WORLD
VOL. III., NO. 14--MAY, 1866.

[ORIGINAL.]

PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.
INTRODUCTION.

We wish to state distinctly and openly, at the outset of this work, that the solution given of the problems therein discussed is a solution derived from the Catholic faith. Its sole object will be to make an exposition of the doctrines of the Catholic faith bearing on these problems. By an exposition, is not meant a mere expansion or paraphrase of the articles of the Creed, but such a statement as shall include an exhibition of their positive, objective truth, or conformity to the real order of being and existence; and of their reasonableness or analogy to the special part of that universal order lying within the reach of rational knowledge. In doing this we choose what appears to us the best and simplest method. It differs, however, in certain respects, from the one most in vogue, and therefore requires a few preliminary words of explanation.

The usual method is, to proceed as far as possible in the analysis of the religious truths provable by reason, to introduce afterward the evidences of revealed religion, and finally to proceed to an exposition of revealed doctrines. We have no wish to decry the many valuable works constructed on this plan, but simply to vindicate the propriety of following another, which is better suited to our special purpose. We conceive it not to be necessary to follow the first method in explaining the faith of a Christian mind, because the Christian mind itself does not actually attain to faith by this method. We do not proceed by a course of reasoning through natural theology and evidences of revelation to our Christian belief. We begin by submitting to instruction, and receiving all it imparts at once, without preliminaries. The Christian child begins by saying "Credo in Unum Deum." This is the first article of his faith. It is proposed to him, by an authority which he reveres as divine, as the first and principal [{146}] article of a series of revealed truths. If that act is right and rational, it can be justified on rational grounds. It can be shown to be in conformity to the real order. If it is in conformity to the real order, it is in conformity also to the logical order. The exposition of the real order of things is the exposition of truth, and is, therefore, sound philosophy. A child who has attained the full use of his reason and received competent instruction, either has, or has not, a faith; not merely objectively certain, but subjectively also, as certain and as capable of being rationally accounted for, though not by his own reflection, as that of a theologian. If he has this subjective certitude, a simple explication of the creditive act in his mind will show the nature and ground of it in the clearest manner. If he has not, children and simple persons who are children in science, i.e., the majority of mankind, are incapable of faith--a conclusion which oversets theology.

We have now indirectly made known what our own method will be; namely, to present the credible object in contact or relation with the creditive subject, as it really is when the child makes the first complete act of faith. Instead of inviting the reader to begin at the viewing point of a sceptic or atheist, and reason gradually up from certain postulates of natural reason, through natural theology, to the Catholic faith, we invite him to begin at once at the viewing point of a Catholic believer, and endeavor to get the view which one brought up in the church takes of divine truth. We do not mean to ask him to take anything for granted. We will endeavor to show the internal coherence of Catholic doctrine, and its correspondence with the primitive judgments of reason. We cannot pretend to exhibit systematically the evidence sustaining each portion of this vast system. It would only be doing over again a work already admirably done. We must suppose it to be known or within the reach of the knowledge of our readers, and in varying degrees admitted by different classes of them, contenting ourselves with indicating rather than completing the line of argument on special topics.

The Catholic reader will see in this exposition of the Catholic idea only that which he already believes, stated perhaps in such a way as to aid his intellectual conception of it. The Protestant reader, accordingly as he believes less or more of the Catholic Creed, will see in it less or more to accept without argument, together with much which he does not accept, but which is proposed to his consideration as necessary to complete the Christian idea. The unbeliever will find an affirmation of the necessary truths of pure reason, together with an attempt to show the legitimate union between the primitive ideal formula and the revealed or Christian formula, binding them into one synthesis, philosophically coherent and complete.

II.

RELATION OF THE CREDIBLE OBJECT AND THE CREDITIVE SUBJECT.

Let us begin with a child, or a simple, uneducated adult, who is in a state of perpetual childhood as regards scientific knowledge. Let us take him as a creditive subject or Christian believer, with the credible object or Catholic faith in contact with his reason from its earliest dawn. Before proceeding formally to analyze his creditive act, we will illustrate it by a supposed case.

Let us suppose that, when our Lord Jesus Christ was upon earth, he went to visit a pagan in order to instruct him in the truths of religion. We will suppose him to be intelligent, upright, and sincere, with as much knowledge of religious truth as was ordinarily attainable through the heathen tradition. Let us suppose him to receive the instructions of Christ with faith, to be baptized, and to remain ever after a firm and undoubting [{147}] believer in the Christian doctrine. Now by what process does he attain a rational certitude of the truth of the revelation made by the lips of Christ?

In the first place, the human wisdom and virtue of our Lord are intelligible to him by the human nature common to both, and in proportion to his own personal wisdom and goodness. Having in himself, by virtue of his human nature, the essential type of human goodness, he is able to recognize the excellence of one in whom it is carried to its highest possible perfection. The human perfection visible in Jesus Christ predisposes him to believe his testimony. The testimony that Jesus Christ bears of himself is that he is the Son of God. This declaration includes two propositions. The chief term of the first proposition is "God." The chief term of the second proposition is "Jesus Christ." The first term includes all that can be understood by the light of reason concerning the Creator and his creative act. The second term includes all that can be apprehended by the light of faith concerning the interior relations of God, the incarnation of the Son, or Word, the entire supernatural order included in it, and the entire doctrine revealed by Christ. The idea expressed by the first term is already in the mind of the pagan, as the first and constitutive principle of his reason. His reflective consciousness of this idea and his ability to make a correct and complete explication of its contents are very imperfect. But when the distinct affirmation and explication of the idea of God are made to him by one who possesses a perfect knowledge of God, he has an immediate and certain perception of the truth of the conception thus acquired by his intelligence. God has already affirmed himself to his reason, and Christ, in affirming God to his intellect, has only repeated and manifested by sensible images, and in distinct, unerring language, this original affirmation.

It is otherwise with the affirmation which Christ makes respecting the second term. God does not affirm to his reason by the creative act the internal relations of Father and Son, completed by the third, or Holy Spirit, and therefore, although it is a necessary truth, and in itself intelligible as such, it is not intelligible as a necessary truth to his intellect. The incarnation, redemption, and other mysteries affirmed to him by Christ, are not in themselves necessary truths, but only necessary on the supposition that they have been decreed by God. The certitude of belief in all this second order of truths rests, therefore, entirely on the veracity of God, authenticating the affirmation of his own divine mission made by Jesus Christ. We must, therefore, suppose that this affirmation is made to the mind of the pagan with such clear and unmistakable evidence of the fact that the veracity of God is pledged to its truth, that it would be irrational to doubt it. Catholic doctrine also requires us to suppose that Christ imparts to him a supernatural grace, as the principle of a divine faith and a divine life based upon it. The nature and effect of this grace must be left for future consideration.

These truths received on the faith of the testimony of the Son of God by the pagan are not, however, entirely unintelligible to his natural reason. We can suppose our Lord removing his difficulties and misapprehensions, showing him that these truths do not contradict reason, but harmonize with it as far as it goes, and pointing out to him certain analogies in the natural order which render them partially apprehensible by his intellect. Thus, while his mind cannot penetrate into the substance of these mysteries, or grasp the intrinsic reason of them after the mode of natural knowledge, it can nevertheless see them indirectly, as reflected in the natural order, and by resemblance, and rests its undoubting belief of them on the revelation made by Jesus Christ, attested by the veracity of God.

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In this supposed case, the pagan has the Son of God actually before his eyes, and with his own ears can hear his words. This is the credible object. He is made inwardly certain that he is the Son of God by convincing evidence and the illustration of divine grace. This is the creditive subject, in contact with the credible object. It exemplifies the process by which God has instructed the human race from the beginning, a process carried on in the most perfect and successful manner in the instance we are about to examine of a child brought up in the Catholic Church.

The mind of the child has no prejudices and no imperfect conceptions derived from a perverted and defective instruction to be rectified. Its soul is in the normal and natural condition. The grace of faith is imparted to it in baptism, so that the rational faculties unfold under its elevating and strengthening influence with a full capacity to elicit the creditive act as soon as they are brought in contact with the credible object. This credible object, in the case of the child, as in that of the pagan, is Christ revealing himself and the Father. He reveals himself, however, not by his visible form to the eye, or his audible word to the ear, but by his mystical body the church, which is a continuation and amplification of his incarnation. The church is visible and audible to the child as soon as his faculties begin to open. At first this is only in an imperfect way, as Jesus Christ was at first only known in an imperfect way to the pagan above described. As he merely knew Christ at first as a man, and in a purely human way, so the child receives the instruction of his parents, teachers, and pastors, in whom the church is represented, in regard to the truths of faith, just as he does in regard to common matters. He begins with a human faith, founded in the trusting instincts of nature, which incline the young to believe and obey their superiors. As soon as his reason is capable of understanding the instruction given him, he is able to discover the strong probability of its truth. He sees this dimly at first, but more and more clearly as his mind unfolds, and the conception of the Catholic Church comes before it more distinctly. Some will admit that even a probability furnishes a sufficient motive for eliciting an act of perfect faith. This is the doctrine of Cardinal de Lugo, and it has been more recently propounded by that extremely acute and brilliant writer, Dr. John Henry Newman. [Footnote 24]

[Footnote 24: Since the above was written the author has seen reason to suspect that he misunderstood Dr. Newman. The point will be more fully discussed hereafter.]

According to their theory, the undoubting firmness of the act of faith is caused by an imperate act of the will determining the intellect to adhere firmly to the doctrine proposed, as revealed by God. There are many, however, who will not be satisfied with this, and we acknowledge that we are of the number. It appears to us that the mind must have indubitable certitude that God has revealed the truth in order to a perfect act of faith. Therefore we believe that the mind of the child proceeds from the first apprehension of the probability that God has revealed the doctrines of faith to a certitude of the fact, and that, until it reaches that point, its faith is a human faith, or an inchoate faith, merely. The ground and nature of that certitude will be discussed hereafter. In the meantime, it is sufficient to remark that the child or other ignorant person apprehends the very same ground of certitude in faith with the mature and educated adult, only more implicitly and obscurely, and with less power to reflect on his own acts. Just as the child has the same certainty of facts in the natural order with an adult, so it has the same certainty of facts in the supernatural order. When we have once established the proper ground of human faith in testimony in general, and of the certitude of our rational judgments, we have no need of a particular application to the case of [{149}] children. It is plain enough that, so soon as their rational powers are sufficiently developed, they must act according to this universal law. So in regard to faith. When we have established in general its constitutive principles, it is plain that the mind of the child, just as soon as it is capable of eliciting an act of faith, must do it according to these principles.

The length of lime, and the number of preparatory acts requisite, before the mind of a child is fully capable of eliciting a perfect act of faith, cannot be accurately determined, and may vary indefinitely. It may require years, months, or only a few weeks, days, or hours. Whenever it does elicit this perfect act, the intelligible basis of the creditive act may be expressed by the formula, Christus creat ecclesiam, [Footnote 25] In the church, which is the work of Christ and his medium or instrument for manifesting himself, the person and the doctrine of Christ are disclosed. In the first term of the formula, Christus, is included another proposition, viz., Christus est Filius Dei. [Footnote 26] Finally, in the last term of the second proposition is included a third, Deus est creator mundi. [Footnote 27] The whole may be combined into one formula, which is only the first one explicated, Christus, Filius Dei, qui est creator mundi, creat ecclesiam.[Footnote 28]

[Footnote 25: Christ creates the Church.]

[Footnote 26: Christ Is the Son of God.]

[Footnote 27: God is the creator of the world.]

[Footnote 28: Christ, the Son of God, who is the creator of the world, creates the Church.]

In this formula we have the synthesis of reason and faith, of philosophy and theology, of nature and grace. It is the formula of the natural and supernatural worlds, or rather of the natural universe, elevated into a supernatural order and directed to a supernatural end. In the order of instruction, Ecclesia comes first, as the medium of teaching correct conceptions concerning God, Christ, and the relations in which they stand toward the human race. These conceptions may be communicated in positive instruction in any order that is convenient. When they are arranged in their proper logical relation, the first in order is Deus creat mundum, including all our rational knowledge concerning God. The second is Christus est Filius Dei, which discloses God in a relation above our natural cognition, revealing himself in his Son, as the supernatural author and the term of final beatitude. Lastly comes Christus creat ecclesiam, in which the church, at first simply a medium for communicating the conceptions of God and Christ, is reflexively considered and explained, embracing all the means and institutions ordained by Christ for the instruction and sanctification of the human race, in order to the attainment of its final end. In the conception of God the Creator, we have the natural or intelligible order and the rational basis of revelation. In the conception of the Son, or Word, we have the super-intelligible order in its connection with the intelligible, in which alone we can apprehend it. God reveals himself and his purposes by his Word, and we believe on the sole ground of his veracity. The remaining conceptions are but the complement of the second.

All this is expressed in the Apostles' Creed. In the first place, by its very nature, it is a symbol of instruction, presupposing a teacher. The same is expressed in the first word, "Credo," explicitly declaring the credence given to a message sent from God. The first article is a confession of God the Father, followed by the confession of the Son and the Holy Ghost. After this comes "Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam," with the other articles depending on it, and lastly the ultimate term of all the relations of God to man, expressed in the words "Vitam aeternam."

Having described the actual attitude of the mind toward the Creed at the time when its reasoning faculty is developed, and the method by which [{150}] instruction in religious doctrines is communicated to it, we will go over these doctrines in detail, in order to explain and verify them singly and as a whole. The doctrine first in order is that which relates to God, and this will accordingly be first treated of, in the ensuing number.

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From The Dublin University Magazine
GLASTONBURY ABBEY, PAST AND PRESENT,
THE RISE OF THE BENEDICTINES. [Footnote 29]

[Footnote 29: Authorities.--Acta Sanctoram: Butler's Lives of the Saints; Gregory's Dialogues; Mabillon Acta Sanct.; Ord; Benedicti; Zeigelbauer's Hist. Rei Liter.; Fosbrooke and Dugdale.]

As Glastonbury Abbey was one of the chief ornaments of the Benedictine Order; as that order was one of the greatest influences, next to Christianity itself, ever brought to bear upon humanity; as the founder of that order and sole compiler of the rule upon which it was based must have been a legislator, a leader, a great, wise, and good man, such as the world seldom sees, one who, unaided, without example or precedent, compiled a code which has ruled millions of beings and made them a motive-power in the history of humanity; as the work done by that order has left traces in every country in Europe--lives and acts now in the literature, arts, sciences, and social life of nearly every civilized community--it becomes imperatively necessary that we should at this point investigate these three matters--the man, the rule, and the work:--the man, St. Benedict, from whose brain issued the idea of monastic organization; the rule by which it was worked, which contains a system of legislation as comprehensive as the gradually compiled laws of centuries of growth; and the work done by those who were subject to its power, followed out its spirit, lived under its influence, and carried it into every country where the gospel was preached.

Far away in olden times, at the close of the fifth century, when the gorgeous splendor of the Roman day was waning and the shades of that long, dark night of the middle ages were closing in upon the earth; just at that period when, as if impelled by some instinct or led by some mysterious hand, there came pouring down from the wilds of Scandinavia hordes of ferocious barbarians who threatened, as they rolled on like a dark flood, to obliterate all traces of civilization in Europe--when the martial spirit of the Roman was rapidly degenerating into the venal valor of the mercenary--when the western empire had fallen, after being the tragic theatre of scenes to which there is no parallel in the history of mankind--when men, aghast at human crime and writhing under the persecutions of those whom history has branded as the "Scourge of God," sought in vain for some shelter against their kind--when human nature, after that struggle between refined corruption and barbarian ruthlessness, lay awaiting the night of troubles which was to fall upon it as a long penance for human crime--just at this critical period in the world's history appeared the man who was destined to rescue from the general destruction of Roman life the elements of a future civilization; to provide an asylum to which art might flee with her choicest treasures, where science might labor in safety, where [{151}] learning might perpetuate and multiplied its stores, where the oracles of religion might rest secure, and where man might retire from the woe and wickedness of a world given up to destruction, live out his life in quiet, and make his peace with his God.

That man was St. Benedict, who was born of noble parents about the year 480, at Norcia, a town in the Duchy of Spoleto; his father's name was Eutropius, his grandfather's Justinian. Although the glory of Rome was on the decline, her schools were still crowded with young disciples of all nations, and to Rome the future saint was sent to study literature and science. The poets of this declining age have left behind them a graphic picture of the profligacy and dissipation of Roman life---the nobles had given themselves up to voluptuous and enervating pleasures, the martial spirit which had once found vent in deeds with whose fame the world has ever since rung, had degenerated into the softer bravery which dares the milder dangers of a love intrigue, or into the tipsy valor loudest in the midnight brawl. The sons of those heroes who in their youth had gone out into the world, subdued kingdoms, and had been drawn by captive monarchs through the streets of Rome in triumph, now squandered the wealth and disgraced the name of their fathers over the dice-box and the drinking cup. Roman society was corrupt to its core, the leaders were sinking into the imbecility of licentiousness, the people were following their steps with that impetuosity so characteristic of a demoralized populace, whilst far up in the rude, bleak North the barbarian, with the keen instinct of the wild beast, sat watching from his lonely wilds the tottering towers of Roman glory--the decaying energies of the emasculated giant--until the moment came when he sallied forth and with one hardy blow shattered the mighty fabric and laid the victors of the world in abject slavery at his feet. Into this society came the youthful Benedict, with all the fresh innocence of rustic purity, and a soul already yearning after the great mysteries of religion; admitted into the wild revelry of student life, that prototype of modern Bohemianism, he was at once disgusted with the general profligacy around him. The instincts of his youthful purity sickened at the fetid life of Rome, but in his case time, instead of reconciling him to the ways of his fellows, and transforming, as it so often does, the trembling horror of natural innocence into the wild intrepidity of reckless license, only strengthened his disgust for what he saw, and the timid, thoughtful, pensive student shrank from the noisy revelry, and sought shelter among his books.

About this time, too, the idea of penitential seclusion was prevalent in the West, stimulated by the writings and opinions of St. Augustine and St. Jerome. It has been suggested that the doctrine of asceticism was founded upon the words of Christ, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." [Footnote 30] St. Gregory himself dwells with peculiar emphasis upon this passage, which he expounds thus, "Let us listen to what he said in this passage--let him who will follow me deny himself; in another place it is said that we should forego our possessions; here it is said that we should deny ourselves, and perhaps it is not laborious to a man to relinquish his possessions, but it is very laborious to relinquish himself. For it is a light thing to abandon what one has, but a much greater thing to abandon what one is. " [Footnote 31] Fired by the notion of self-mortification imparted to these words of Christ by their own material interpretation, these men forsook the world and retired to caves, rocks, forests, anywhere out of sight of [{152}] their fellow-mortals--lived on bitter herbs and putrid water, exposed themselves to the inclemency of the winter and the burning heats of summer.

[Footnote 30: Matt. xvi. 24.]

[Footnote 31: St. Greg. Hom, 32 in Evangel.]

Such was the rise and working of asceticism, which brought out so many anchorites and hermits. Few things in the history of human suffering can parallel the lives of these men.

As regards conventual life, that is, the assemblage of those who ministered in the church under one roof, sharing all things in common, that may be traced back to the apostles and their disciples, who were constrained to live in this way, and, therefore, we find that wherever they established a church, there they also established a sort of college, or common residence, for the priests of that church. This is evident from the epistles of Ignatius, nearly all, of which conclude with a salutation addressed to this congregation of disciples, dwelling together, and styled a "collegium." His epistle to the Church at Antioch concludes thus, "I salute the sacred College of Presbyters" (Saluto Sanctum Presbyterorum Collegium). The Epistle ad Philippenses, "Saluto S. Episcopum et sacrum Presbyterorum Collegium"--so also the epistles to the Philadelphians, the Church at Smyrna, to the Ephesians, and to the Trallians.

But when St. Benedict was sent as a lad to Rome, the inclination toward the severer form of ascetic life, that of anchorites and hermits, had received an impulse by the works of the great fathers of the church, already alluded to; and the pensive student, buried in these more congenial studies, became imbued with their spirit, and was soon fired with a romantic longing for a hermit life. At the tender age of fifteen, unable to endure any longer the dissonance between his desires and his surroundings, he flood from Rome, and took refuge in a wild, cavernous spot in the neighboring country. As he left the city he was followed by a faithful nurse, Cyrilla by name, who had brought him up from childhood, had tended him in his sojourn at Rome, and now, though lamenting his mental derangement, as she regarded it, resolved not to leave her youthful charge to himself, but to watch over him and wait upon him in his chosen seclusion. For some time this life went on, St. Benedict becoming more and more attached to his hermitage, and the nurse, despairing of any change, begged his food from day to day, prepared it for him, and watched over him with a mother's tenderness. A change then came over the young enthusiast, and he began to feel uneasy under her loving care. It was not the true hermit life, not the realization of that grand idea of solitude with which his soul was filled; and under the impulse of this new emotion he secretly fled from the protection of his foster-mother, and, without leaving behind him the slightest clue to his pursuit, hid himself among the rocks of Subiaco, or, as it was then called, Sublaqueum, about forty miles distant from Rome. At this spot, which was a range of bleak, rocky mountains with a river and lake below in the valley, he fell in with one Romanus, a monk, who gave him a monastic dress, with a hair shirt, led him to a part on the mountains where there was a deep, narrow cavern, into which the sun never penetrated, and here the young anchorite took up his abode, subsisting upon bread and water, or the scanty provisions which Romanus could spare him from his own frugal repasts; these provisions the monk used to let down to him by a rope, ringing a bell first to call his attention. For three years he pursued this life, unknown to his friends, and cut off from all communication with the world; but neither the darkness of his cavern nor the scantiness of his fare could preserve him from troubles. He was assailed by many sore temptations.

One day that solitude was disturbed by the appearance of a man in the [{153}] garb of a priest, who approached his cave and began to address him; but Benedict would hold no conversation with the stranger until they had prayed together, after which they discoursed for a long time upon sacred subjects, when the priest told him of the cause of his coming. The day happened to be Easter Sunday, and as the priest was preparing his dinner, he heard a voice saying, "You are preparing a banquet for yourself, whilst my servant Benedict is starving;" that he thereupon set out upon his journey, found the anchorite's cave, and then producing the dinner, begged St. Benedict to share it with him, after which they parted. A number of shepherds, too, saw him near his cave, and as he was dressed in goat-skins, took him at first for some strange animal; but when they found he was a hermit, they paid their respects to him humbly, brought him food, and implored his blessing in return.

The fame of the recluse of Subiaco spread itself abroad from that time through the neighboring country; many left the world and followed his example; the peasantry brought their sick to him to be healed, emulated each other in their contributions to his personal necessities, and undertook long journeys simply to gaze upon his countenance and receive his benediction. Not far from his cave were gathered together in a sort of association a number of hermits, and when the fame of this youthful saint reached them they sent a deputation to ask him to come among them and take up his position as their superior. It appears that this brotherhood had become rather lax in discipline, and, knowing this, St. Benedict at first refused, but subsequently, either from some presentiment of his future destiny, or actuated simply by the hope of reforming them, he consented, left his lonely cell, and took up his abode with them as their head.

In a very short time, however, the hermits began to tire of his discipline and to envy him for his superior godliness. An event then occurred which forms the second cognizance by which the figure of St. Benedict may be recognized in the fine arts. Endeavors had been made to induce him to relax his discipline, but to no purpose; therefore they resolved upon getting rid of him, and on a certain day, when the saint called out for some wine to refresh himself after a long journey, one of the brethren offered him a poisoned goblet. St. Benedict took the wine, and, as was his custom before eating or drinking anything, blessed it, when the glass suddenly fell from his hands and broke in pieces. This incident is immortalized in stained-glass windows, in paintings, and frescoes, where the saint is either made to carry a broken goblet, or it is to be seen lying at his feet. Disgusted with their obstinacy he left them, voluntarily returned to his cavern at Subiaco, and dwelt there alone. But the fates conspired against his solitude, and a change came gradually over the scene. Numbers were drawn toward the spot by the fame of his sanctity, and by-and-bye huts sprang up around him; the desert was no longer a desert, but a colony waiting only to be organized to form a strong community. Yielding at length to repeated entreaties, he divided this scattered settlement into twelve establishments, with twelve monks and a superior in each, and the monasteries were soon after recognized, talked about, and proved a sufficient attraction to draw men from all quarters, even from the riotous gaieties of declining Rome.

We will mention one or two incidents related of St. Benedict, which claim attention, more especially as being the key to the artistic mysteries of Benedictine pictures. It was one of the customs in this early Benedictine community for the brethren not to leave the church immediately after the divine office was concluded, but to remain for some time in silent mental prayer. One of the brethren, however, took no delight in this holy [{154}] exercise, and to the scandal of the whole community used to walk coolly out of the church as soon as the psalmody was over. The superior remonstrated, threatened, but to no purpose; the unruly brother persisted in his conduct. St. Benedict was appealed to, and when he heard the circumstances of the case, said he would see the brother himself. Accordingly, he attended the church, and at the conclusion of the divine office, not only saw the brother walk out, but saw also what was invisible to every one else--a black boy leading him by the hand. The saint then struck at the phantom with his staff, and from that time the monk was no longer troubled, but remained after the service with the rest.

St. Gregory also relates an incident to the effect that one day as a Gothic monk was engaged on the border of the lake cutting down thistles, he let the iron part of his sickle, which was loose, fall into the water. St. Maur, one of Benedict's disciples--of whom we shall presently speak--happened to be standing by, and, taking the wooden handle from the man, he held it to the water, when the iron swam to it in miraculous obedience.

As we have said, the monasteries grew daily in number of members and reputation; people came from far and near, some belonging to the highest classes, and left their children at the monastery to be trained up under St. Benedict's protection. Amongst this number, in the year 522, came two wealthy Roman senators, Equitius and Tertullus, bringing with them their sons, Maurus, then twelve years of age, and Placidus, only five. They begged earnestly that St. Benedict would take charge of them, which he did, treated them as if they had been his own sons, and ultimately they became monks under his rule, lived with him all his life, and after his death became the first missionaries of his order in foreign countries, where Placidus won the crown of martyrdom. Again, St. Benedict nearly fell a victim to jealousy. A priest named Florentius, envying his fame, endeavored to poison him with a loaf of bread, but failed. Benedict once more left his charge in disgust; but Florentius, being killed by the sudden fall of a gallery, Maurus sent a messenger after him to beg him to return, which he did, and not only wept over the fate of his fallen enemy, but imposed a severe penance upon Maurus for testifying joy at the judgment which had befallen him. The incident of the poisoned loaf is the third artistic badge by which St. Benedict is to be known in art, being generally painted as a loaf with a serpent coiled round it. These artistic attributes form a very important feature in monastic painting, and in some instances become the only guide to the recognition him the subject. St. Benedict is sometimes represented with all these accompaniments--the broken goblet, the loaf with the serpent, and in the background the figure rolling in the briers. St. Bernard, who wrote much and powerfully against heresy, is represented with the accompanying incident in the background of demons chained to a rock, or being led away captive, to indicate his triumphs over heretics for the faith. Demons placed at the feet indicate Satan and the world overcome. Great preachers generally carry the crucifix, or, if a renowned missionary, the standard and cross. Martyrs carry the palm. A king who has resigned his dignity and entered a monastery has a crown lying at his feet. A book held in the hand represents the gospel, unless it be accompanied by pen and ink-horn, when it implies that the subject was an author, as in the case of Anselm, who is represented as holding in his hands his work on the incarnation, with the title inscribed, "Cur Deus Homo," or it may relate to an incident in the life, as the blood-stained book, which St. Boniface holds, entitled "De Bono Mortis," a work he was devotedly fond of, always [{155}] carried about with him, and which was found after his murder in the folds of his dress stained with his blood. But the highest honor was the stigmata or wounds of Christ impressed upon the hands, feet, and side. This artistic pre-eminence is accorded to St. Francis, the founder of the order which bears his name, and to St. Catharine, of Siena. A whole world of history lies wrapped up in these artistic symbols, as they appear in the marvellous paintings illustrative of the hagiology of the monastic orders which are cherished in half the picture galleries and sacred edifices of Europe, and form as it were a living testimony and a splendid confirmation of the written history and traditions of the church.

Although, at the period when we left St. Benedict reinstalled in his office as superior, Christianity was rapidly being established in the country, yet there were still lurking about in remote districts of Italy the remains of her ancient paganism. Near the spot now called Monte Cassino was a consecrated grove in which stood a temple dedicated to Apollo. St. Benedict resolved upon clearing away this relic of heathendom, and, fired with holy seal, went amongst the people, preached the gospel of Christ to them, persuaded them at length to break the statue of the god and pull down the altar; he then burned the grove and built two chapels there--the one dedicated to St. John the Baptist and the other to St. Martin. Higher up upon the mountain he laid the foundation of his celebrated monastery, which still bears his name, and here he not only gathered together a powerful brotherhood, but elaborated that system which infused new vigor into the monastic life, cleared it of its impurities, established it upon a firm and healthy basis, and elevated it, as regards his own order, into a mighty power, which was to exert an influence over the destinies of humanity inferior only to that of Christianity itself. St. Benedict, with the keen perception of genius, saw in the monasticism of his time, crude as it was, the elements of a great system. For five centuries it had existed and vainly endeavored to develop itself into something like an institution, but the grand idea had never yet been struck out--that idea which was to give it permanence and strength. Hitherto the monk had retired from the world to work out his own salvation, caring little about anything else, subsisting on what the devotion of the wealthy offered him from motives of charity; then, as time advanced, they acquired possessions and wealth, which tended only to make them more idle and selfish. St. Benedict detected in all this the signs of decay, and resolved on revivifying its languishing existence by starting a new system, based upon a rule of life more in accordance with the dictates of reason. He was one of those who held as a belief that to live in this world a man must do something--that life which consumes, but produces not, is a morbid life, in fact, an impossible life, a life that must decay, and therefore, imbued with the importance of this fact, he made labor, continuous and daily labor, the great foundation of his rule. His vows were like those of other institutions--poverty, chastity, and obedience--but he added labor, and in that addition, as we shall endeavor presently to show, lay the whole secret of the wondrous success of the Benedictine Order. To every applicant for admission, these conditions were read, and the following words added, which were subsequently adopted as a formula: "This is the law under which thou art to live and to strive for salvation; if thou canst observe it, enter; if not, go in peace, thou art free." No sooner was his monastery established than it was filled by men who, attracted by his fame and the charm of the new mode of life, came and eagerly implored permission to submit themselves to his rule. Maurus and Placidus, his favorite disciples, still [{156}] remained with him, and the tenor of his life flowed on evenly.

After Belisarius, the emperor's general, had been recalled, a number of men totally incapacitated for their duties were sent in his place. Totila, who had recently ascended the Gothic throne, at once invaded and plundered Italy; and in the year 542, when on his triumphant march, after defeating the Byzantine army, he was seized with a strong desire to pay a visit to the renowned Abbot Benedict, who was known amongst them as a great prophet. He therefore sent word to Monte Cassino to announce his intended visit, to which St. Benedict replied that he would be happy to receive him. On receiving the answer he resolved to employ a stratagem to test the real prophetic powers of the abbot, and accordingly, instead of going himself, he caused the captain of the guard to dress himself in the imperial robes, and, accompanied by three lords of the court and a numerous retinue, to present himself to the abbot as the kingly visitor. However, as soon as they entered into his presence, the abbot detected the fraud, and, addressing the counterfeit king, bid him put off a dress which did not belong to him. In the utmost alarm they all fled back to Totila and related the result of their interview; the unbelieving Goth, now thoroughly convinced, went in proper person to Monte Cassino, and, on perceiving the abbot seated waiting to receive him, he was overcome with terror, could go no further, and prostrated himself to the ground. [Footnote 32] St. Benedict bid him rise, but as he seemed unable, assisted him himself. A long conversation ensued, during which St. Benedict reproved him for his many acts of violence, and concluded with this prophetic declaration: "You have done much evil, and continue to do so; you will enter Rome; you will cross the sea; you will reign nine years longer, but death will overtake you on the tenth, when you will be arraigned before a just God to give an account of your deeds." Totila trembled at this sentence, besought the prayers of the abbot, and took his leave. The prediction was marvellously fulfilled; in any case the interview wrought a change in the manner of this Gothic warrior little short of miraculous, for from that time he treated those whom he had conquered with gentleness. When he took Rome, as St. Benedict had predicted he should, he forbade all carnage, and insisted on protecting women from insult; stranger still, in the year 552, only a little beyond the time allotted him by the prediction, he fell in a battle which he fought against Narses, the eunuch general of the Greco-Roman army. St. Benedict's sister, Scholastica, who had become a nun, discovered the whereabouts of her lost brother, came to Monte Cassino, took up her residence near him, and founded a convent upon the principles of his rule. She was, therefore, the first Benedictine nun, and is often represented in paintings, prominent in that well-known group composed of herself, St. Benedict, and the two disciples, Maurus and Placidus.

[Footnote 32: "Quem cum a longe sedentem cerneret, non ausus accedero sese in terram dedit."--St. Greg. Dial., lib. ii., c. 14.]

It appears that her brother was in the habit of paying her a visit every year, and upon one occasion stayed until late in the evening, so late that Scholastica pressed him not to leave; but he persisting, she offered a prayer that heaven might interpose and prevent his going, when suddenly a tempest came on so fierce and furious that he was compelled to remain until it was over, when he returned to his monastery. Two days after this occurrence, as he was praying in his cell, he beheld the soul of his beloved sister ascending to heaven in the form of a dove, and the same day intelligence was brought him of her death. This vision forms the subject of many of the pictures in Benedictine nunneries. One short month after the decease of this affectionate sister, St. [{157}] Benedict, through visiting and attending to the sick and poor in his neighborhood, contracted a fever which prostrated him; he immediately foretold his death, and ordered the tomb in which his sister lay in the church to be opened. On the sixth day of his illness he asked to be carried to it, where he remained for some time in silent, prayerful contemplation; he then begged to be removed to the steps of the high alter, where, having received the holy viaticum, he suddenly stretched out his arms to heaven and fell back dead. This event took place on Saturday, the 21st March, 543, in the 63d year of his age. He was buried by the side of his sister Scholastica, on the very spot, it is said, where he threw down the altar of Apollo. In the seventh century, however, some of his remains were dug up, brought to France, and placed in the Abbey of Fleury, from which circumstance it took the name of St. Benoit, on the Loire. After his death his disciples spread themselves abroad over the continent and founded monasteries of his name and rule. Placidus became a martyr, and was canonized; Maurus founded a monastery in France, was also introduced to England, and from his canonized name, St. Maurus, springs one of the oldest English names--St. Maur, Seymaur, or Seymour.

Divesting this narrative of its legendary accompaniments, and judging of St. Benedict, the man, by the subsequent success of his work, and the influence of his genius upon the whole mechanism of European monasticism, and even upon the destinies of a later civilization, we are compelled to admit that he must have been a man whose intellect and character were far in advance of his age. By instituting the vow of labor, that peculiarity in his rule which we shall presently examine more fully, he struck at the root of the evils attending the monasticism of his times, an evil which would have ruined it as an institution in the fifth century had he not interposed, and an evil which in the sixteenth century alone caused its downfall in England.

Before proceeding to examine the rule upon which all the greatness of the Benedictine order was based, it will be necessary to mention the two, earliest mission efforts of the order. The first was conducted under the immediate direction of St. Benedict himself, who in the year 534 sent Placidus, with two others, Gordian and Donatus, into Sicily, to erect a monastery upon land which Tertullus, the father of Placidus, had given to St. Benedict. Shortly after the death of the saint, Innocent, bishop of Mans, in France, sent Flodegarde, his archdeacon, and Hardegarde, his steward, to ask for the assistance of some monks of St. Benedict's monastery, for the purpose of introducing the order into France. St. Maurus was selected for the mission, and, accompanied by Simplicius, Constantinian, Antony, and Faustus, he set out from Monte Cassino, and arrived in France the latter end of the year 543; but to their great consternation, upon reaching Orleans, they were told that the Bishop of Mans was dead, and another hostile to their intentions had succeeded him. They then bent their steps toward Anjou, where they founded the monastery of Glanfeuil, from whose cloisters issued the founders of nearly all the Benedictine institutions in France. From these two centres radiated that mighty influence which we shall now proceed to examine.

As we have in a former paper sketched the internal structure of the monastery, we will before going further fill each compartment with its proper officers, people the whole monastery with its subjects, and then examine the law which kept them together.

The abbot was, of course, the head and ruler of the little kingdom, and when that officer died the interval between his death and the installation [{158}] of his successor was beautifully called the "widowhood of the monastery." The appointment was considered to rest with the king, though the Benedictine rule enjoined a previous election by the monks and then the royal sanction. This election was conducted in the chapter-house: the prior who acted as abbot daring the time the mitre was vacant summoned the monks at a certain hour, the license to elect was then read, the hymn of the Holy Ghost sung, all who were present and had no vote were ordered to leave, the license was repeated--three scrutators took the votes separately, and the chanter declared the result--the monks then lifted up the elect on their shoulders, and, chanting the Te Deum, carried him to the high altar in the church, where he lay whilst certain prayers were said over him; they then carried him to the vacant apartments of the late abbot, which were thrown open, and where he remained in strict seclusion until the formal and magnificent ceremony of installation was gone through. In the meantime the aspect of the monastery was changed, the signs of mourning were laid aside, the bells which had been silent were once more heard, the poor were again admitted and received relief, and preparations were at once commenced for the installation. Outside also there was a commotion, for the peasantry, and in fact all the neighborhood, joined in the rejoicings. The immense resources of the refectory were taxed to their utmost, for the installation of the lord abbot was a feast, and to it were invited all the nobility and gentry in the neighborhood. On the day of the ceremony the gate of the great church was thrown open to admit all who were to witness the solemn ceremony, and, as soon as the bells had ceased, the procession began to move from the cloisters, headed by the prior, who was immediately followed by the priest of the divine office, clad in their gorgeous ceremonial robes; then followed the monks, in scapulary and cowled tunic, and last of all the lay brethren and servants; the newly elect and two others who were to officiate in his installation remained behind, as they were not to appear until later. The prior then proceeded to say mass, and just before the gospel was read there was a pause, during which the organ broke out into strains of triumphant music, and the newly chosen abbot with his companions were seen to enter the church, and walk slowly up the aisle toward the altar. As they approached they were met by the prior (or the bishop, if the abbey were in the jurisdiction of one), who then read the solemn profession, to which the future abbot responded; the prior and the elect then prostrated themselves before the high altar, in which position they remained whilst litanies and prayers were chanted; after the litany the prior arose, stood on the highest step of the altar, and whilst all were kneeling in silence pronounced the words of the benediction; then all arose, and the abbot received from the hands of the prior the rule of the order and the pastoral staff, a hymn was sung, and, after the gospel, the abbot communicated, and retired with his two attendants, to appear again in the formal ceremony of introduction. During his absence the procession was re-formed by the chanter, and, at a given signal, proceeded down the choir to meet the new abbot, who reappeared at the opposite end bare-footed, in token of humility, and clad no longer in the simple habit of a monk, but with the abbot's rich dalmatic, the ring on his finger, and a glittering mitre of silver, ornamented with gold, on his brow. As soon as he had entered he knelt for a few moments in prayer upon a carpet, spread on the upper step of the choir; when he arose he was formally introduced as the lord high abbot, led to his stall, and seated there with the pastoral staff in his hand. The monks then advanced, according to [{159}] seniority, and, kneeling before him, gave him the kiss of peace, first upon the hand, and afterward, when rising, upon the month. When this ceremony was over, amid the strains of the organ and the uplifted voices of the choir, the newly proclaimed arose, marched through the choir in full robes, and, carrying the pastoral staff, entered the vestiary, and then proceeded to divest himself of the emblems of his office. The service was concluded, the abbot returned to his apartments, the monks to the cloisters, the guests to prepare for the feast, and the widowhood of the abbey was over. The sway of the abbot was unlimited--they were all sworn to obey him implicitly, and he had it in his power to punish delinquents with penances, excommunication, imprisonment, and in extreme cases with corporal punishment--he ranked as a peer, was styled "My Lord Abbot," and in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries kept an equal state and lived as well as the king on the throne: some of them had the power of conferring the honor of knighthood, and the monarch himself could not enter the monastery without permission. The next man in office to the abbot was the prior, [Footnote 33] who, in the absence of his superior, was invested with full powers; but on other occasions his jurisdiction was limited--in some monasteries he was assisted by sub-priors, in proportion to the size of the institution and number of its inmates.

[Footnote 33: Heads of priories were priors also, but they were equally subject to their respective abbeys.]

After the prior in rank came the precentor or chanter, an office only given to a monk who had been brought up in the monastery from a child. He had the supervision of the choral service, the writing out the tables of divine service for the monks, the correction of mistakes in chanting, which he led off from his place in the centre of the choir; he distributed the robes at festivals, and arranged processions. The cellarer was intrusted with the food, drink, etc., of the monastery, also with the mazers or drinking cups of the monks, and all other vessels used in the cellar, kitchen, and refectory; he had to attend at the refectory table, and collect the spoons after dinner. The treasurer had charge of the documents, deeds, and moneys belonging to the monastery; he received the rents, paid all the wages and expenses, and kept the accounts. The sacristan's duties were connected with the church; he had to attend to the altar, to carry a lantern before the priest, as he went from the altar to the lecturn, to cause the bell to be rung; he took charge of all the sacred vessels in use, prepared the host, the wine, and the altar bread. The almoner's duty was to provide the monks with mats or hassocks for their feet in the church, also matting in the chapter-house, cloisters, and dormitory stairs; he was to attend to the poor, and distribute alms amongst them, and in the winter warm clothes and shoes. After the monks had retired from the refectory, it was his duty to go round and collect any drink left in the mazers to be given away to the poor. The kitchener was filled by a different monk every week in turn, and he had to arrange what food was to be cooked, go round to the infirmary, visit the sick and provide for them, and superintend the labors of his assistants. The infirmarer had care of the sick; it was his office to administer to their wants, to give them their meals, to sprinkle holy water on their beds every night after the service of complin. A person was generally appointed to this duty who, in case of emergency, was competent to receive the confession of a sick man. The porter was generally a grave monk of mature age; he had an assistant to keep the gate when he delivered messages, or was compelled to leave his post. The chamberlain's business was to look after the beds, bedding, and shaving room, to attend to the dormitory windows, and to have the chambers swept, and the straw of the beds changed once every year, and under his [{160}] supervision was the tailory, where clothes, etc., were made and repaired. There were other offices connected with the monastery, but these were the principal, and next to these came the monks who formed the convent with the lay brethren and novices. If a child were dedicated to God by being sent to a monastery, his parents were required to swear that he would receive no portion of fortune, directly or indirectly; if a mature man presented himself, he was required to abandon all his possessions, either to his family or to the monastery itself, and then to enter as a novitiate. In order to make this as trying as possible, the Benedictine rule enjoined that no attention should be at first paid to an applicant, that the door should not be even opened to him for four or five days, to test his perseverance. If he continued to knock, then he was to be admitted to the guests' house, and after more delay to the novitiate, where he was submitted to instruction and examination. Two months were allowed for this test, and if satisfactory, the applicant had the rule read to him, which reading was concluded with the words used by St. Benedict himself, and already quoted: "This is the law under which thou art to live, and to strive for salvation. If thou canst observe it, enter; if not, go in peace, thou art free." The novitiate lasted one year, and during this time the rule was read and the question put thrice. If at the end of that time the novice remained firm, he was introduced to the community in the church, made a declaration of his vows in writing, placed it on the altar, threw himself at the feet of the brethren, and from that moment was a monk. The rule which swayed this mass of life, wherever it existed, in a Benedictine monastery, and indirectly the monasteries of other orders, which are only modifications of the Benedictine system, was sketched out by that solitary hermit of Subiaco. It consists of seventy-three chapters, which contain a code of laws regulating the duties between the abbot and his monks, the mode conducting the divine services, the administration of penalties and discipline, the duties of monks to each other, and the internal economy of the monastery, the duties of the institution toward the world outside, the distribution of charity, the kindly reception of strangers, the laws to regulate the actions of those who were compelled to be absent or to travel; in fine, everything which could pertain to the administration of an institution composed of an infinite variety of characters subjected to one absolute ruler. It has elicited the admiration of the learned and good of all subsequent ages. It begins with the simple sentence: "Listen, O son, to the precepts of the master! Do not fear to receive the counsel of a good father, and to fulfil it fully, that thy laborious obedience may lead thee back to him from whom disobedience and weakness have alienated thee. To thee, whoever thou art, who renouncest thine own will to fight under the true King, the Lord Jesus Christ, and takest in hand the valiant and glorious weapons of obedience, are my words at this moment addressed." The first words, "Ausculta, O fili!" are often to be seen inscribed on a book placed in the hands of St. Benedict, in paintings and stained glass. The preamble contains the injunction of the two leading principles of the rule; all the rest is detail, marvellously thorough and comprehensive. These two grand principles were obedience and labor--the former became absorbed in the latter, for he speaks of that also as a species of labor--"Obedientiae laborem;" but the latter was the genius, the master-spirit of the whole code. There was to be labor, not only of contemplation, in the shape of prayer, worship, and self-discipline, to nurture the soul, but labor of action, vigorous, healthy, bodily labor, with the pen in the scriptorium, with the spade in the fields, with the hatchet in the forest, or with the trowel on the walls. Labor of some sort there must be daily, but no idleness: that was branded as "the [{161}] enemy of the soul"--"Otiositas inimica est animiae." It was enjoined with all the earnestness of one thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the great Master, who said, "Work whilst it is yet day, for the night cometh, when no man shall work;" who would not allow the man he had restored to come and remain with him--that is, to lead the life of religious contemplation, but told him to "go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee!" That is the life of religious activity. The error of the early monasticism was the making it solely a life of contemplation. Religious contemplation and religious activity must go together. In the contemplation the Christian acquires strength, in the activity he uses that strength for others; in the activity he is made to feel his weakness and driven to seek for aid in contemplation and prayer.

But, beside being based upon divine authority and example, this injunction of labor was formed upon a clear insight into and full appreciation of one of the most subtle elements of our constitution. It is this, that without labor no man can live; exist he may, but not live. This is one of the great mysteries of life--its greatest mystery; and its most emphatic lesson, which, if men would only learn, it would be one great step toward happiness, or at least toward that highest measure of happiness attainable below. If we can only realize this fact in the profundity of its truth, we shall have at once the key to half the miseries and anomalies which beset humanity. Passed upon man, in the first instance, by the Almighty as a curse, yet it carried in it the germ of a blessing; pronounced upon him as a sentence of punishment, yet there lurked in the chastisement the Father's love. Turn where we may, to the pages of bygone history or to the unwritten page of everyday life, from the gilded saloons of the noble to the hut of the peasant, we shall find this mysterious law working out its results with the unerring precision of a fundamental principle of nature. Where men obey that injunction of labor, no matter what their station, there is in the act the element of happiness, and wherever men avoid that injunction there is always the shadow of the unfulfilled curse darkening their path. This is the great clue to the balance of compensation between the rich and the poor. The rich man has no urgent need to labor; his wealth provides him with the means of escape from the injunction, and there is to be found in that man's life, unless he, in some way, with his head or with his hands, works out his measure of the universal task, a dissonance and a discord, a something which, in spite of all his wealth and all his luxury, corrupts and poisons his whole existence. It is a truth which cannot be ignored--no man who has studied life closely has failed to notice it, and no merely rich man lives who has not felt it and would not confess to its truth, if the question were pressed upon him. But in the case of the man who works, there is in his daily life the element of happiness, cares flee before him, and all the little caprices and longings of the imagination--those gad-flies which torment the idle--are to him unknown. He fulfils the measure of life; and whatever his condition, even if destitute in worldly wealth, we may be assured that the poor man has great compensations, and if he sat down with the rich man to count up grievances would check off a less number than his wealthier brother. Whatever his position, man should labor diligently; if poor he should labor and he may become rich, and if rich he should labor still, that all the evils attendant upon riches may disappear. Pure health steals over the body, the mind becomes dear, and the little miseries of life, the petty grievances, the fantastic wants, the morbid jealousies, the wasting weariness, and the terrible sense of vacuity which haunt [{162}] the life of one-half of the rich in the world, all flee before the talisman of active labor; nor should we be discouraged by failure, for it is better to fail in action than to do nothing. After all, what is commonly called failure we shall find to be not altogether such if we examine more closely. We set out upon some action or engagement, and after infinite toil we miss the object of that action or engagement, and they say we have failed; but there is consolation in this incontrovertible fact, that although we may have missed the particular object toward which our efforts have been directed, yet we have not altogether failed. There are many collateral advantages attendant upon exertion which may even be of greater importance than the attainment of the immediate object of that exertion, so that it is quite possible to fail wholly in achieving a certain object and yet make a glorious success. Half the achievements of life are built up on failures, and the greater the achievement, the greater evidence it is of persistent combat with failure. The student devotes his days and nights to some intellectual investigation, and though he may utterly fail in attaining to the actual object of that search, yet he may be drawn into some narrow diverging path in the wilderness of thought which may lead him gradually away from his beaten track on to the broad open light of discovery. The navigator goes out on the broad ocean in search of unknown tracts of land, and though he may return, after long and fruitless wanderings, yet in the voyages he has made he has acquired experience, and may, perchance, have learned some fact or thing which will prove the means of saving him in the hour of danger. Those great luminaries of the intellectual firmament--men who devoted their whole lives to investigate, search, study, and think for the elevation and good of their fellows--have only succeeded after a long discipline of failure, but by that discipline their powers have been developed, their capacity of thought expanded, and the experience gradually acquired which at length brought success. There is, then, no total failure to honest exertion, for he who diligently labors must in some way reap. It is a lesson often reiterated in apostolic teaching that "whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth;" and the truth of that lesson may be more fully appreciated by a closer contemplation of life, more especially this phenomenon of life in which we see the Father's love following close upon the heels of his chastisement. The man who works lives, but he who works not lives but a dying and a hopeless life.

That vow of labor infused new vitality into the monks, and instead of living as they had hitherto done upon the charity of the public, they soon began not only to support themselves, but to take the poor of their neighborhood under their own especial protection. Whenever the Benedictines resolved on building a monastery, they chose the most barren, deserted spot they could find, often a piece of land long regarded as useless, and therefore frequently given without a price, then they set to work, cleared a space for their buildings, laid their foundations deep in the earth, and by gradual but unceasing toil, often with their own hands, alternating their labor with their prayers, they reared up those stately abbeys which still defy the ravages of age. In process of time the desert spot upon which they had settled underwent a complete transformation--a little world populous with busy life sprang up in its midst, and far and near in its vicinity the briers were cleared away--the hard soil broken up--gardens and fields laid out, and soon the land, cast aside by its owners as useless, bore upon its fertile bosom flowers, fruit, corn, in all the rich exuberance of heaven's blessing upon man's toil--plenty and peace smiled upon the whole scene--its halls were vocal with the voice of praise and the incense of charity arose [{163}] to heaven from its altars. They came upon the scene poor and friendless--they made themselves rich enough to become the guardians of the poor and friendless; and the whole secret of their success, the magic by which they worked these miracles, was none other than that golden rule of labor instituted by the penetrating intellect of their great founder; simple and only secret of all success in this world, now and ever--work--absolute necessity to real life, and, united with faith, one of the elements of salvation.

Before we advance to the consideration of the achievements of the Benedictine order, we wish to call attention to a circumstance which has seldom, if ever, been dwelt upon by historians, and which will assist us in estimating the influence of monachism upon the embryo civilization of Europe.

It is a remarkable fact that two great and renowned phases of life existed in the world parallel to each other, and went out by natural decay just at the same period: chivalry and monasticism. The latter was of elder birth, but as in the reign of Henry VIII. England saw the last of monasticism, so amid some laughter, mingled with a little forced seriousness, did she see the man who was overturning that old system vainly endeavoring to revive the worn-out paraphernalia of chivalry. The jousts and tournaments of Henry's time were the sudden flashing up of that once brilliant life, before its utter extinction. Both had been great things in the world--both had done great things, and both have left traces of their influence upon modern society and modern refinement which have not yet been obliterated, and perhaps never will be. It may then be interesting and instructive if we were to endeavor to compare the value of each by the work it did in the world. The origin of monasticism we have already traced; that of chivalry requires a few comments. Those who go to novels and romances for their history, have a notion that chivalry existed only in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, the periods chosen for the incidents of those very highly colored romances which belong to that order of writing. There is also a notion that it sprang out of the Crusades, which, instead of being its origin, were rather the result of the system itself. The real origin of chivalry may be fairly traced to that period when the great empire of the West was broken up and subdivided by the barbarians of the North. Upon the ruins of that empire chivalry arose naturally. The feudal system was introduced, each petty state had a certain number of vassals, commanded by different chiefs, on whose estates they lived, and to whom they swore fealty in return for their subsistence; these again looked up to the king as head.

By-and-bye, as the new form of life fell into working order, it became evident that these chiefs, with their vassals, were a power in themselves, and by combination might interfere with, if not overthrow, the authority of the king himself. Their continued quarrels amongst themselves were the only protection the king had against them, but gradually that ceased, and a time came when there was no occupation for the superfluous valor of the country; retainers lay about castleyards in all the mischief of idleness, drunken and clamorous; the kings not yet firmly seated on their thrones looked about for some current into which they might divert this dangerous spirit. The condition of things in the states themselves was bad enough; the laws were feebly administered; it was vain for injured innocence to appeal against the violence of power; the sword was the only lawgiver, and strength the only opinion. Women were violated with impunity, houses burned, herds stolen, and even blood shed without any possibility of redress for the injured. This state of things was the foundation of chivalry. [{164}] Instinctively led, or insidiously directed to it, strong men began to take upon themselves the honor of redressing grievances, the injured woman found an armed liberator springing up in her defence, captives were rescued by superior force, injuries avenged, and the whole system--by the encouragement of the petty kings who saw in this rising feeling a vent for the idle valor they so much dreaded--soon consolidated itself, was embellished and made attractive by the charm of gallantry, and the rewards accorded to the successful by the fair ladies who graced the courts. Things went on well, and that dangerous spirit which threatened to overturn royalty now became its greatest ornament. In process of time it again outgrew its work, and with all the advantages of organization and flatteries of success, it once more became the tenor of the crowned heads of Europe. At this crisis, however, an event occurred which, in all probability, though it drained Europe of half her manhood, saved her from centuries of bloodshed and anarchy; that event was the banishment of the Christians and the taking of Jerusalem by the Saracens. Here was a grand field for the display of chivalry. Priestly influence was brought to bear upon the impetuous spirits of these chevaliers, religious fervor was aroused, and the element of religious enthusiasm infused into the whole organization; fair ladies bound the cross upon the breasts of their champions, and bid them go and fight under the banners of the Mother of God. The whole continent fired up under the preaching of Peter the Hermit; all the rampant floating chivalry of Europe was aroused, flocked to the standards of the church, and banded themselves together in favor of this Holy War; whilst the Goth, the Vandal, and the Lombard, sitting on their tottering thrones, encouraged by every means in their power this diversion of the prowess they had so much dreaded, and began to see in the troubles of Eastern Christianity a fitting point upon which to concentrate the fighting material of Europe out of their way until their own position was more thoroughly consolidated. The Crusades, however, came to an end in time, and Europe was once more deluged with bands of warriors who came trooping home from Eastern climes changed with new ideas, new traditions, and filled with martial ardor. But now the Goth, the Vandal, and the Lombard had made their position secure, and the knights and chieftains fell back naturally upon their old pursuit of chivalry, took up arms once more in defence of the weak and injured against the strong and oppressive. That valor which had fought foot to foot with the swarthy Saracen, had braved the pestilence of Eastern climes and the horrors of Eastern dungeons, soon enlisted itself in the more peaceable lists of the joust and tournament, and went forth under the inspiration of a mistress's love-knot to do that work which we material moderns consign to the office of a magistrate and the arena of a quarter sessions.

It was in this later age of chivalry, when the religious element had blended with it, and it was dignified with the traditions of religious championship, that the deeds were supposed to be done which form the subject of those wonderful romances;--that was more properly the perfection of the institution; its origin lay, as we have seen, much further back.

As regards the difference between the work and influence of chivalry and monasticism, it is the same which always must exist between the physical and the moral--the one was a material and the other was a spiritual force. The orders of chivalry included all the physical strength of the country, its active material; but the monastery included all its spiritual power and thinking material. Chivalry was the instrument by which mighty deeds were done, but the intellect which guided, directed, and in [{165}] fact used that instrument was developed and matured in the seclusion of the cloister. By the adoption of a stringent code of honor as regards the plighted word, and a gallant consideration toward the vanquished and weak, chivalry did much toward the refinement of social intercommunication and assuaging the atrocities of warfare. By the adoption, also, of a gentle bearing and respectful demeanor toward the opposite sex, it elevated woman from the obscurity in which she lay, and placed her in a position where she could exercise her softening influence upon the rude customs of a half-formed society; but we must not forget that the gallantry of chivalry was, after all, but a glossing over with the splendors of heroism the excrescences of a gross licentiousness--a licentiousness which mounted to its crisis in the polished gallantry of the court of Louis XIV. Monasticism did more for woman than chivalry. It was all very well for preux chevaliers to go out and fight for the honor of a woman's name whom they had never seen; but we find that when they were brought into contact with woman they behaved with like ruthless violence to her whatever her station may have been--no matter whether she was the pretty daughter of the herdsman, or the wife of some neighboring baron, she was seized by violence, carried off to some remote fortress, violated and abandoned. Monasticism did something better, it provided her when she was no longer safe, either in the house of her father or her husband, with an impregnable shelter against the licentious pursuit of these preux chevaliers; it gave her a position in the church equal to their own; she might become the prioress or the lady abbess of her convent; she was no longer the sport and victim of chivalrous licentiousness, but a pure and spotless handmaiden of the Most High--a fellow-servant in the church, where she was honored with equal position and rewarded with equal dignities--a far better thing this than chivalry, which broke skulls in honor of her name, whilst it openly violated the sanctity of her person. It may be summed up in a sentence. Monasticism worked long and silently at the foundation and superstructure of society, whilst chivalry labored at its decoration.

When we mention the fact that the history of the mere literary achievements of the Benedictine order fills four large quarto volumes, printed in double columns, it will be readily understood how impossible it is to give anything like an idea of its general work in the world in the space of a short summary. That book, written by Zeigelbauer, and called "Historia Rei Literariae Ordinis Sancti Benedicti," contains a short biography of every monk belonging to that order who had distinguished himself in the realms of literature, science, and art. Then comes Don Johannes Mabillon with his ponderous work, "Acta Sanctorum Ordinis Sancti Benedicti." These two authorities gave a minute history of that marvellous institution, of whose glories we can only offer a faint outline.

The Benedictines, after the death of their founder, steadily prospered, and as they prospered, sent out missionaries to preach the truth amongst the nations then plunged in the depths of paganism. It has been estimated that they were the means of converting upwards of thirty countries and provinces to the Christian faith. They were the first to overturn the altars of the heathen deities in the north of Europe; they carried the cross into Gaul, into Saxony and Belgium; they placed that cross between the abject misery of serfdom and the cruelty of feudal violation; between the beasts of burden and the beasts of prey--they proclaimed the common kinship of humanity in Christ the Elder Brother.

Strange to say, some of its most distinguished missionaries were natives of our own country. It was a [{166}] Scottish monk, St. Ribanus, who first preached the gospel in Franconia--it was an English monk, St. Wilfred, who did the same in Friesland and Holland in the year 683, but with little success--it was an Englishman, St. Swibert, who carried the cross to Saxony, and it was from the lips of another Englishman, St. Ulfred, that Sweden first heard the gospel--it was an Englishman and a Devonshire man, St. Boniface, who laid aside his mitre, put on his monk's dress, converted Germany to the truth, and then fell a victim to the fury of the heathen Frieslanders, who slaughtered him in cold blood. Four Benedictine monks carried the light of truth into Denmark, Sweden, and Gothland, sent there in the ninth century by the Emperor Ludovicus Pius. Gascony, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia, Pomerania, are all emblazoned on their banners as victories won by them in the fight of faith; and it was to the devotion of five martyr monks, who fell in the work, that Poland traces the foundation of her church.

It is a remarkable fact in the history of Christianity, that in its earliest stage--the first phase of its existence--its tendency was to elevate peasants to the dignity of apostles, but in its second stage it reversed its operations and brought kings from their thrones to the seclusion of the cloister--humbled the great ones of the earth to the dust of penitential humility. Up to the fourth century Christianity was a terrible struggle against principalities and powers: then a time came when principalities and powers humbled themselves at the foot of that cross whose followers they had so cruelly persecuted. The innumerable martyrdoms of the first four centuries of its career were followed by a long succession of' royal humiliations, for, during the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries, in addition to what took place as regards other orders, no less than ten emperors and twenty kings resigned their crowns and became monks of the Benedictine order alone. Amongst this band of great ones the most conspicuous are the Emperors Anastasius, Theodosius, Michael, Theophilus, and Ludovicus Pius. Amongst the kings are Sigismund of Burgundy, Cassimir of Poland, Bamba of Spain, Childeric and Theodoric of France, Sigisbert of Northumberland, Ina of the West Saxons, Veremunde of Castille, Pepin of Italy, and Pipin of Acquitaine. Adding to these their subsequent acquisitions, the Benedictines claim up to the 14th. century the honor of enrolling amongst their number twenty emperors and forty-seven kings: twenty sons of emperors and forty-eight sons of kings--amongst whom were Drogus, Pipin, and Hugh, sons of Charlemagne; Lothair and Carlomen, sons of Charles; and Fredericq, son of Louis III. of France. As nuns of their order they have had no less than ten empresses and fifty queens, including the Empresses Zoa Euphrosyne, St. Cunegunda, Agnes, Augusta, and Constantina; the Queens Batilda of France, Elfreda of Northumberland, Sexburga of Kent, Ethelberga of the West Saxons, Ethelreda of Mercia, Ferasia of Toledo, Maud of England. In the year 1290 the Empress Elizabeth took the veil with her daughters Agnes, queen of Hungary, and the Countess Cueba; also Anne, queen of Poland, and Cecily, her daughter. In the wake of these crowned heads follow more than one hundred princesses, daughters of kings and emperors. Five Benedictine nuns have attained literary distinction--Rosinda, St. Elizabeth, St. Hildegardis, whose works were approved of by the Council of Treves, St. Hiltrudis, and St. Metilda.

For the space of 239 years 1 month and 26 days the Benedictines governed the church in the shape of 48 popes chosen from their order, most prominent among whom was Gregory the Great, through whose means the rule was introduced into England. Four of these pontiffs came from the original [{167}] monastery of Monte Cassino, and three of them quitted the throne and resumed the monastic life--Constantine II., Christopher I., and Gregory XII. Two hundred cardinals had been monks in their cloisters--they produced 7,000 archbishops, 15,000 bishops, fifteen of whom took off their mitres, resumed their monks' frock, and died in seclusion; 15,000 abbots; 4,000 saints. They established in different countries altogether 87,000 monasteries, which sent out into the world upwards of 15,700 monks, all of whom attained distinction as authors of books or scientific inventors. Rabanus established the first school in Germany. Alcuin founded the University of Paris, where 30,000 students were educated at one time, and whence issued, to the honor of England, St. Thomas à Becket, Robert of Melun, Robert White, made cardinal by Celestine II., Nicholas Broakspear, the only Englishman ever made Pope, who filled the chair under the title of Adrian IV., and John of Salisbury, whose writings give us the best description of the learning both of the university and the times. Theodore and Adrian, two Benedictine monks, revived the University of Oxford, which Bede, another of the order, considerably advanced. It was in the obscurity of a Benedictine monastery that the musical scale or gamut--the very alphabet of the greatest refinement of modern life--was invented, and Guido d'Arezzo, who wrested this secret from the realms of sound, was the first to found a school of music. Sylvester invented the organ, and Dionysius Exiguus perfected the ecclesiastical computation.

England in the early periods of her history contributed upwards of a hundred sons to this band of immortals, the most distinguished of whom we will just enumerate--St. Cuthbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, whose life Bede has written, and whose "Ordinationes" and "De Vita Monastica" have reached to our times. St. Benedict Biscop, the founder of the monasteries of St. Peter and St. Paul, at Wearmouth and Jarrow, a nobleman by birth, and a man of extraordinary learning and ability, to whom England owes the training of the father of her ecclesiastical history, the Venerable Bede. St. Aldhelm, nephew of King Ina, St. Wilfrid, St Brithwald, a monk of Glastonbury, elevated to the dignity of Archbishop of Canterbury, which he held over thirty-seven years. His works which have come down to us are a "Life of St. Egwin, bishop of Worcester," and the "Origin of the Monastery of Evesham." Tatwin, who succeeded him in the archbishopric. Bede the Venerable, who was skilled in all the learning of the times, and; in addition to Latin and Greek, was versed in Hebrew; he wrote an immense number of works, many of which are lost, but the best known are the greater portion of the "Saxon Chronicle," which was continued after his death as a national record; and his "Ecclesiastical History," which gives to England a more compendious and valuable account of her early church than has fallen to the lot of any other nation. He was also one of the earliest translators of the Scriptures, and oven on his death-bed dictated to a scribe almost up to the final moment; when the last struggle came upon him he had reached as far as the words, "But what are they among so many," in the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel, and the ninth verse. St. Boniface, already alluded to as the apostle of Germany, was a native of Devonshire. He was made Archbishop of Mentz, but being possessed with an earnest longing to convert the heathen Frieslanders, he retired from his archbishopric, and putting on his monk's dress took with him no other treasure than a book he was very fond of reading, called "De Bono Mortis," went amongst these people, who cruelly beat him to death in the year 755; and the book stained with his blood [{168}] was cherished as a sacred relic long after. Alcuin, whom we have already mentioned as the founder of the University of Paris, was a Yorkshireman, and was educated under Bede. He lived to become the friend of Charlemagne, and next to his venerable master was the greatest scholar and divine in Europe; he died about the year 790. John Asser, a native of Pembrokeshire, is another of these worthies. It is supposed that Alfred endowed Oxford with professors, and settled stipends upon them, under his influence, he being invited to the court of that monarch for his great learning. He wrote a "Commentary" upon Boethius de Consolatione Philosophiae, the "Life of King Alfred," and the "Annals of Great Britain." St. Dunstan, a monk of Glastonbury, the best known of all these great Englishmen, died Archbishop of Canterbury; but as we shall have much to say of him hereafter we pass on to St. Ethelwold, his pupil, also a monk at Glastonbury, distinguished for his learning and piety, for which he was made abbot of the Monastery of Abingdon, where he died in the year 984. Ingulphus, a native of London, was made Abbot of Croyland, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1075. A history of the abbey over which he presided has been attributed to him, but its authenticity has been gravely disputed. Alfric, a noted grammarian. Florence, of Worcester, was another great annalist, who in his "Chronicon ex Chronici" brings the history down to the year 1119, that in which he died; his book is chiefly valuable as a key to the "Saxon Chronicle." William, the renowned monk of Malmesbury, the most elegant of all the monastic Latinists, was born about the time of the Norman Conquest. His history consists of two parts, the "Gesta Regum Anglorum," in five books, including the period between the arrival of the Saxons and the year 1120. The "Historia Novella," in three books, brings it down to the year 1142. He ranks next to Bede as an historic writer, most of the others being mere compilers and selectors from extant chronicles. He also wrote a work on the history of the English bishops, called "De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum," in which he speaks out fearlessly and without sparing: also a treatise on the antiquity of Glastonbury Abbey, "De Antiquitate Glastoniensis Ecclesiae;" his style is most interesting, and he is supposed to have written impartially, separating the improbable from the real, and gives us what can readily be appreciated as a fair and real picture of the state of things, more especially of the influence and policy of the Norman court, and the opening of the struggle between the two races. Eadmer was another contemporaneous celebrity with William of Malmesbury; he was the author of a history of his own times, called "Historia Novorum sive Sui Secula," which is spoken of very highly by William of Malmesbury; it contains the reigns of William the Conqueror and Rufus, and a portion of that of Henry I., embracing a period extending from 1066 to 1122. Matthew Paris, another historian who lived about the year 1259, closes our selection from the long list of British worthies who were members of the Benedictine order.

When we reflect that all the other monastic systems, not only of the past, but even of the present day, are but modifications of this same rule, and that it emanated from the brain, and is the embodiment of the genius of the solitary hermit of Monte Cassino, we are lost in astonishment at the magnitude of the results which have sprung from so simple an origin. That St. Benedict had any presentiment of the future glory of his order, there is no sign in his rule or his life. He was a great and good man, and he produced that comprehensive rule simply for the guidance of his own immediate followers, without a thought beyond. But it was blessed, [{169}] and grew and prospered mightily in the world. He has been called the Moses of a favored people; and the comparison is not inapt, for he lead his order on up to the very borders of the promised country, and after his death, which, like that of Moses, took place within sight of their goal, they fought their way through the hostile wilds of barbarism, until those men who had conquered the ancient civilizations of Europe lay at their feet, bound in the fetters of spiritual subjection to the cross of Christ. The wild races of Scandinavia came pouring down upon southern Europe in one vast march of extermination, slaying and destroying as they advanced, sending before them the terror of that doom which might be seen in the desolation which lay behind them; but they fell, vanquished by the power of the army of God, who sallied forth in turn to reconquer the world, and fighting not with the weapons of fire and sword, but, like Christian soldiers, girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness, they subdued these wild races, who had crushed the conquerors of the earth, and rested not until they had stormed the stronghold, and planted the cross triumphantly upon the citadel of an ancient paganism. Time rolled on, and the gloom of a long age of darkness fell upon a world whose glory lay buried under Roman ruins. Science had gone, literature had vanished, art had flown, and men groped about in vain in that dense darkness for one ray of hope to cheer them in their sorrow. The castle of the powerful baron rose gloomily above them, and with spacious moat, dense walls, and battlemented towers, frowned ominously upon the world which lay abject at its feet. In slavery men were born, and in slavery they lived. They pandered to the licentiousness and violence of him who held their lives in his hands, and fed them only to fight and fail at his bidding. But far away from the castle there arose another building, massive, solid, and strong, not frowning with battlemented towers, nor isolated by broad moats; but with open gates, and a hearty welcome to all comers, stood the monastery, where lay the hope of humanity, as in a safe asylum. Behind its walls was the church, and clustered around it the dwelling-places of those who had left the world, and devoted their lives to the service of that church, and the salvation of their souls. Far and near in its vicinity the land bore witness to assiduous culture and diligent care, bearing on its fertile bosom the harvest hope of those who had labored, which the heavens watered, the sun smiled upon, and the winds played over, until the heart of man rejoiced, and all nature was big with the promise of increase. This was the refuge to which religion and art had fled. In the quiet seclusion of its cloisters science labored at its problems and perpetuated its results, uncheered by applause and stimulated only by the pure love of the pursuit. Art toiled in the church, and whole generations of busy fingers worked patiently at the decoration of the temple of the Most High. The pale, thoughtful monk, upon whose brow genius had set her mark, wandered into the calm retirement of the library, threw back his cowl, buried himself in the study of philosophy, history, or divinity, and transferred his thoughts to vellum, which was to moulder and waste in darkness and obscurity, like himself in his lonely monk's grave, and be read only when the spot where he labored should be a heap of ruins, and his very name a controversy amongst scholars.

We should never lose sight of this truth, that in this building, when the world was given up to violence and darkness, was garnered up the hope of humanity; and these men who dwelt there in contemplation and obscurity were its faithful guardians--and this was more particularly the case with that great order whose foundation we [{170}] have been examining. The Benedictines were the depositaries of learning and the arts; they gathered books together, and reproduced them in the silence of their cells, and they preserved in this way not only the volumes of sacred writ, but many of the works of classic lore. They started Gothic architecture--that matchless union of nature with art--they alone had the secrets of chemistry and medical science; they invented many colors; they were the first architects, artists, glass-stainers, carvers, and mosaic workers in mediaeval times. They were the original illuminators of manuscripts, and the first transcribers of books; in fine, they were the writers, thinkers, and workers of a dark age, who wrote for no applause, thought with no encouragement, and worked for no reward. Their power, too, waxed mighty; kings trembled before their denunciations of tyranny, and in the hour of danger fled to their altars for safety; and it was an English king who made a pilgrimage to their shrines, and prostrate at the feet of five Benedictine monks, bared his back, and submitted himself to be scourged as a penance to his crimes.

Nearly fourteen hundred years have rolled by since the great man who founded this noble order died; and he who in after years compiled the "Saxon Chronicle" has recorded it in a simple sentence, which, amongst the many records of that document, we may at least believe, and with which we will conclude the chapter--"This year St. Benedict the Abbot, father of all monks, went to heaven."

---

From The Month.
SAINTS OF THE DESERT,
BY THE REV. J. H. NEWMAN, D.D.

1. Some old men came to Abbot Antony, who, to try their spirits, proposed to them a difficult passage of Scripture.

As each in turn did his best to explain it, Antony said: "You have not hit it."

Till Abbot Joseph said: "I give it up."

Then cried Antony: "He has hit it; for he owns he does not know it."

2. When the Abbot Arsenius was at the point of death, his brethren noted that he wept. They said then: "Is it so? art thou too afraid, O father?"

He answered: "It is so; and the fear that is now upon me has been with me ever since I became a monk."

And so he went to sleep.

3. Abbot Pastor said: "We cannot keep out bad thoughts, as we cannot stop the wind rushing through the door; but we can resist them when they come."

4. Abbot Besarion said, when he was dying: "A monk ought to be all eye, as the cherubim and seraphim."

5. They asked Abbot Macarius how they ought to pray.

The old man made answer: "No need to be voluble in prayer; but stretch forth thy hands frequently, and say, 'Lord, as thou wilt, and as thou knowest, have mercy on me.' And if war is coming on, say, 'Help!' And he who himself knoweth what is expedient for thee, will show thee mercy."

6. On a festival, when the monks were at table, one cried out to the servers, "I eat nothing dressed, so bring me some salt."

Blessed Theodore made reply: "My brother, better were it to have even secretly eaten flesh in thy cell than thus loudly to have refused it."

7. An old man said: "A monk's cell is that golden Babylonian furnace in which the Three Children found the Son of God."

---

[{171}]

[ORIGINAL]

CHRISTINE:
A TROUBADOUR'S SONG,
IN FIVE CANTOS.
BY GEORGE H. MILES. [Footnote 34]

[Footnote 34: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by Lawrence Kehoe, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.]

(Continued)

THE THIRD SONG.
I.
Fronting the vine-clad Hermitage,--
Its hoary turrets mossed with age,
Its walls with flowers and grass o'ergrown,--
A ruined Castle, throned so high
Its battlements invade the sky,
Looks down upon the rushing Rhone.
From its tall summits you may see
The sunward slopes of Côte Rotie
With its red harvest's revelry;
While eastward, midway to the Alpine snows,
Soar the sad cloisters of the Grande Chartreuse.
And here, 'tis said, to hide his shame,
The thrice accursed Pilate came;
And here the very rock is shown.
Where, racked and riven with remorse,
Mad with the memory of the Cross,
He sprang and perished in the Rhone.
'Tis said that certain of his race
Made this tall peak their dwelling place.
And built them there this castle keep
To mark the spot of Pilate's leap.
[{172}]
Full many the tale of terror told
At eve, with changing cheek,
By maiden fair and stripling bold,
Of these dark keepers of the height
And, most of all, of the Wizard Knight,
The Knight of Pilate's Peak.
His was a name of terror known
And feared through all Provence;
Men breathed it in an undertone.
With quailing eye askance,
Till the good Dauphin of Vienne,
And Miolan's ancient Lord,
One midnight stormed the robber den
And gave them to the sword;
All save the Wizard Knight, who rose
In a flame-wreath from his dazzled foes;
All save a child, with golden hair.
Whom the Lord of Miolan deigned to spare
In ruth to womanhood,
And she, alas, is the maiden fair
Who wept in the walnut wood.
But who is he, with step of fate,
Goes gloomily through the castle gate
In me morning's virgin prime?
Why scattereth he with frenzied hand
The fierce flame of that burning brand,
Chaunting an ancient rhyme?
The eagle, scared from her blazing nest,
Whirls with a scream round his sable crest.
What muttereth he with demon smile.
Shaking his mailed hand the while
Toward the Chateau of La Sône,
Where champing steed and bannered tent
Gave token of goodly tournament,
And the Golden Dolphin shone?
"Woe to the last of the Dauphin's line,
When the eagle shrieks and the red lights shine
Bound the towers of Pilate's Peak!
Burn, beacon, burn!"--and as he spoke
From the ruined towers curled the pillared smoke,
As the light flame leapt from the ancient oak
And answered the eagle's shriek.
Man and horse down the hillside sprang
And a voice through the startled forest rang--
"I ride, I ride to win my bride.
Ho, Eblis! to thy servants side;
Thou hast sworn no foe
Shall lay me low
Till the dead in arms against me ride."
[{173}]
II.
Deliciously, deliciously
Cometh the dancing dawn,
Christine, Christine comes with it,
Leading in the morn.
Beautiful pair!
So cometh the fawn
Before the deer.
Christine is in her bower
Beside the swift Isère
Weaving a white flower
With her dark brown hair.
Never, O never,
Wandering river.
Though flowing for ever,
E'er shalt thou mirror
Maiden so fair!
Hail to thee, hail to thee,
Beautiful one;
Maiden to match thee,
On earth there is none.
And there is none to tell
How beautiful thou art:
Though oft the first Rudel
Has made the Princes start,
When he has strung his harp and sung
The Lily of Provence,
Till the high halls have rung
With clash of lifted lance
Vowed to the young
Christine of France.
Ah, true that he might paint
The blooming of thy cheek.
The blue vein's tender streak
On marble temple faint;
Lips in whose repose
Ruby weddeth rose.
Lips that parted show
Ambushed pearl below:
Or he may catch the subtle glow
Of smiles as rare as sweet,
May whisper of the drifted snow
Where throat and bosom meet.
And of the dark brown braids that flow
So grandly to thy feet.
Ah, true that he may sing
Thy wondrous mien.
[{174}]
Stately as befits a queen,
Yet light and lithe and all awing
As becometh Queen of air
Who glideth unstepping everywhere.
And he might number e'en
The charms that haunt the drapery--
Charms that, ever changing, cluster
Round thy milk-white mantle's lustre,--
Maiden mantle that is part of thee.
Maiden mantle that doth circle thee
With the snows of virgin grace;
Halo-like around thee wreathing,
Spirit-like about thee breathing
The glory of thy face.
But these dark eyes, Christine?
Peace, poet, peace,
Cease, minstrel, cease!
But these dear eyes, Christine?
Mute, O mute
Be voice and lute!
O dear dark eyes that seem to dwell
With holiest things invisible,
Who may read your oracle?
Earnest eyes that seem to rove
Empyrean heights above,
Yet aglow with human love.
Who may speak your spell?
Dear dark eyes that beam and bless,
In whose luminous caress
Nature weareth bridal dress,--
Eyes of voiceless Prophetess,
Your meanings who may tell!
O there is none!
Peace, poet, peace.
Cease, minstrel, cease,
For there is none!
O eyes of fire without desire,
O stars that lead the sun!
But minstrel cease,
Peace, poet, peace.
Tame Troubadour be still;
Voice and lute
Alike be mute,
It passeth all your skill!
Sooth thou art fair,
O ladye dear.
Yet one may see
The shadow of the east in thee;
[{175}]
Tinting to a riper flush
The faint vermilion of thy blush;
Deepening in thy dark brown hair
Till sunshine sleeps in starlight there.
For she had scarce seen summers ten,
When erst the Hermit's call
Sent all true Knights from bower and hall
Against the Saracen.
Young, motherless, and passing fair,
The Dauphin durst not leave her there,
Within his castle lone,
To kinsman's cold or casual care,
Not such as were his own:
And so the sweet Provençal maid
Shared with her sire the first Crusade.
And you may hear her oft,
In accents strangely soft.
Still singing of the rose's bloom
In Sharon,--of the long sunset
That gilds lamenting Olivet,
Of eglantines that grace the gloom
Of sad Gethsemane;
And of a young Knight ever seen
In evening walks along the green
That fringes feeble Siloë.
Young, beautiful, and passing fair--
The ancient Dauphin's only heir,
The fairest flower of France,--
Knights by sea and Knights by land
Came to claim the fair white hand,
With sigh and suppliant lance;
And many a shield
Displayed afield
The Lily of Provence.
Ladye love of prince and bard
Yet to one young Savoyard
Swerveless faith she gave--
To the young knight ever seen
When moonlight wandered o'er the green
That gleams o'er Siloë's wave.
And he, blest boy, where lingers he?
For the Dauphin hath given slow consent
That, after a joyous tournament,
The stately spousals shall be.
Christine is in her bower
That blooms by the swift Isère,
Twining a white flower
With her dark brown hair.
[{176}]
The skies of Provence
Are bright with her glance,
And nature's matin organ floods
The world with music from the myriad throats
Of the winged Troubadours, whose joyous notes
Brighten the rolling requiem of the woods.
With melody, flowers, and light
Hath the maiden come to play,
As fragile, fair, and bright
And lovelier than they?
O no, she has come to her bower
That blooms by the dark Isère
For the bridegroom who named the first hour
Of day-dawn to meet her there:
But the bridal morn on the hills is born
And the bridegroom is not here.
Hie thee hither, Savoyard,
On such an errand youth rides hard.
Never knight so dutiful
Maiden failed so beautiful:
And she in such sweet need,
And he so bold and true!--
She will watch by the long green avenue
Till it quakes to the tramp of his steed;
Till it echoes the neigh of the gallant Grey
Spurred to the top of his speed.
In the dark, green, lonely avenue
The Ladye her love-watch keepeth,
Listening so close that she can hear
The very dripping of the dew
Stirred by the worm as it creepeth;
Straining her ear
For her lover's coming
Till his steed seems near
In the bee's far humming.
She stands in the silent avenue,
Her back to a cypress tree;
O Savoyard once bold and true,
Late bridegroom, where canst thou be?
Hark! o'er the bridge that spans the river
There cometh a clattering tread,
Never was shaft from mortal quiver
Ever so swiftly sped.
Onward the sound,
Bound after, bound,
Leapeth along the tremulous ground.
[{177}]
From the nodding forest darting.
Leaves, like water, round them parting.
Up the long green avenue,
Horse and horseman buret in view.
Marry, what ails the bridegroom gay
That he strideth a coal black steed,
Why cometh he not on the gallant Grey
That never yet failed him at need?
Gone is the white plume, that clouded his crest,
And the love-scarf that lightly lay over his breast;
Dark is his shield as the raven's wing
To the funeral banquet hurrying.
Came ever knight in such sad array
On the merry morn of his bridal day?
The Ladye trembles, and well she may;
Saints, you would think him a fiend astray.
A plunge, a pause, and, fast beside her.
Stand the sable horse and rider.
Alas, Christine, this shape of wrath
In Palestine once crossed thy path;
His arm around thy waist, I trow,
To bear thee to his saddle-bow.
But thy Savoyard was there.
In time to save, tho' not to smite,
For the demon fled into the night
From Miolan's matchless heir.
Alas, Christine, that lance lies low--
Lies low on oaken bier!
Low bent the Wizard, till his plume
O'ershadowed her like falling doom:
She feels the cold casque touch her ear,
She hears the whisper, hollow, clear,--
"From Acre's strand, from Holy Land,
O'er mountain crag, through desert sand,
By land, by sea, I come for thee.
And mine ere sunset shalt thou be!
Dost know me, girl?"
The visor raises--
God, 'tis the Knight of Pilate's Peak!
As if in wildered dream she gazes,
Gazing as one who strives to shriek.
She cannot fly, or speak, or stir,
For that face of horror glares, at her
Like a phantom fresh from hell.
She gave no answer, she made no moan;
Mute as a statue overthrown.
Her fair face cold as carved stone,
Swooning the maiden fell.
[{178}]
The sun has climbed the golden hills
And danceth down with the mountain rills.
Over the meadow the swift beams run
Lifting the flowers, one by one,
Sipping their chalices dry as they pass,
And kissing the beads from the bending grass.
The Dauphin's chateau, grand and grey,
Glows merrily in the risen day;
His castle that seemeth ancient as earth,
Lights up like an old man in his mirth.
Through the forest old, the sunbeams bold
Their glittering revel keep,
Till, in arrowy gold, on the chequered wold
In glancing lines they sleep.
And one sweet beam hath found its way
To the violet bank where the Ladye lay.
O radiant touch! perchance so shone
The hand that woke the widow's son.
She sighs, she stirs; the death-swoon breaks;
Life slowly fires those pallid lips;
And feebly, painfully, she wakes,
Struggling through that dark eclipse.
Breathing fresh of Alpine snows,
Breathing sweets of summer rose.
Murmuring songs of soft repose,
The south wind on her bosom blows:
But she heeds it not, she hears it not;
Fast she sits with steady stare.
The dew-drops heavy on her hair,
Her fingers clasped in dumb despair,
Frozen to the spot:
While o'er her fierce and fixed as fate,
The fiend on his spectral war-horse sate.
A horrible smile through the visor broke,
And, quoth he,
"I but watched till my Ladye woke.
Get thee a flagon of Shiraz wine,
For the lips must be red that answer mine!"
Cleaving the woods, like the wind he went.
His face o'er his shoulder backward bent,
Crying thrice--"We shall meet at the Tournament!"
Clasping the cypress overhead,
Christine rose from her fragrant bed.
And a prayer to Mother Mary sped.
Hold not those gleaming skies for her
The same unfailing Comforter?
And those two white winged cherubim,
She once had seen, when Christmas hymn
Chimed with the midnight mass,
Scattering light through the chapel dim,
Alive in me stained glass--
[{179}]
What fiend could harm a hair of her.
While those arching-wings took care of her?
And our Ladye, Maid divine,
Mother round whose marble shrine
She wreathed the rose of Palestine
So many sinless years,
Will not heaven's maiden-mother Queen
Regard her daughter's tears!
Yes!--through the forest stepping slow,
Tranquil mistress of her woe,
Goeth the calm Christine;
And but for yonder spot of snow
Upon each temple, none may know
How stem a storm hath been.
For never dawned a brighter day,
And the Ladye smileth on her way,
Greeting the blue-eyed morn at play
With earth in her spangled green.
A single cloud
Stole like a shroud
Forth from the fading mists that hid
The crest of each Alpine pyramid;
Unmovingly it lingers over
The mountain castle of her lover;
While over Pilate's Peak
Hangs the grey pall of the sullen smoke,
Leaps the lithe flame of the ancient oak
And the eagle soars with a shriek.
Full well she knew the curse was near.
But that heart of hers had done with fear.
By St. Antoine, not steadier stands
Mont Blanc's white head in winter's whirl
Than that calm, fearless, smiling girl
With her bare brow upturned and firmly folded hands.
Back to her bower so fair
Christine her way, is wending;
Over the dark Isère
Silently she's bending,
Thus communing with the stream.
As one who whispers in a dream:
"Waters that at sunset ran
Round the Mount of Miolan;
Stream, that binds my love to me,
Whisper where that lover be;
Wavelets mine, what evil things
Mingle with your murmurings;
Tell me, ere ye glide away.
Wherefore doth the bridegroom stay?
Hath the fiend of Pilate's Peak
Met him, stayed him, slain him--speak!
[{180}]
Speak the worst a Bride may know,
God hath armed my soul for woe;
Touching heaven, the virgin snow
Is firmer than the rock below.
Lies my love upon his bier,
Answer, answer, dark Isère!
Hark, to the low voice of the river
Singing 'Thy love is lost for ever!'
Weep with all thy icy fountains,
"Weep, ye cold, uncaring mountains,
I have not a tea!
Stream, that parts my love from me,
Bear this bridal rose with thee;
Bear it to the happy hearted,
Christine and all the flowers have parted!"
They are coming from the castle,
A bevy of bright-eyed girls,
Some with their long locks braided,
Some with loose golden curls.
Merrily 'mid the meadows
They win their wilful way;
Winding through sun and shadow,
Rivulets at play.
Brows with white rosebuds blowing,
Necks with white pearl entwined.
Gowns whose white folds imprison
Wafts of the wandering wind.
The boughs of the charmèd woodland
Sing to the vision sweet.
The daisies that crouch in the clover
Nod to their twinkling feet.
They see Christine by the river,
And, deeming the bridegroom near,
They wave her a dewy rose-wreath
Fresh plucked for her dark brown hair.
Hand in hand tripping to meet her,
Birdlike they carol their joy.
Wedding soft Provençal numbers
To a dulcet old strain of Savoy.
[{181}]
THE GREETING.
Sister, standing at Love's golden gate.
Life's second door--
Fleet the maidentime is flying.
Friendship fast in love is dying,
Bridal fate doth separate
Friends evermore.
Pilgrim seeking with thy sandalled feet
The land of bliss;
Sire and sister tearless leaving,
To thy beckoning palmer cleaving--
Truant sweet, once more repeat
Our parting kiss.
Wanderer filling for enchanted isle
Thy dimpling sail;
Whither drifted, all uncaring.
So with faithful helmsman faring,
Stay and smile with us, awhile,
Before the gale.
Playmate, hark! for all that once was ours
Soon rings the knell:
Glade and thicket, glen and heather,
Whisper sacredly together;
Queen of ours, the very flowers
Sigh forth farewell.
Christine looked up, and smiling stood
Among the choral sisterhood:
But some who sprang to greet her, stayed
Tiptoe, with the speech unsaid;
And, each the other, none knew why.
Questioned with quick, wondering eye.
One by one, their smiles have flown.
No lip is laughing but her own;
And hers, the frozen smile that wears
The glittering of unshed tears.
"Ye nave sung for me, I will sing for ye,
My sisters fond and fair."
And she bent her head till the chaplet fell
Adown in the deep Isère.
THE REPLY.
Bring me no rose-wreath now:
But come when sunset's first tears fall.
When night-birds from the mountain call--
Then bind my brow,
Roses and lilies white--
But tarry till the glow-worms trail
Their gold-work o'er the spangled veil
Of falling night
[{182}]
Twine not your garland fair
Till I have fallen fast asleep;
Then to my silent pillow creep
And leave it there--
There in the chapel yard!--
Come with twilight's earliest hush,
Just as day's last purple flush
Forsakes the sward.
Stop where the white cross stands.
You'll find me in my wedding suit,
Lying motionless and mute,
With folded hands.
Tenderly to my side:
The bridegroom's form you may not see
In the dim eve, but he will be
Fast by his bride.
Soft with your chaplet move.
And lightly lay it on my head:
Be sure you wake not with rude tread
My jealous love.
Kiss me, then quick away;
And leave us, in unwatched repose,
With the lily and the rose
Waiting for day!
But hark! the cry of the clamorous horn
Breaks the bright stillness of the morn.
From moated wall, from festal hall
The banners beckon, the bugles call,
Already flames, in the lists unrolled
O'er the Dauphin's tent, the Dolphin gold.
A hundred knights in armor glancing.
Hurry afield with pennons dancing,
Each with a vow to splinter a lance
For Christine, the Lily of Provence.
"Haste!" cried Christine;
"Sisters, we tarry late.
Let not the tourney wait
For its Queen!"
And, toward the castle gate,
They take their silent way along the green.

TO BE CONTINUED

---

[{183}]

From The Literary Workman.
JENIFER'S PRAYER.
BY OLIVER CRANE.
IN THREE PARTS.

PART II.

Mary Lorimer returned in safety to Beremouth under Horace Erskine's care, welcomed as may be supposed by the adopted father and her mother. Not that "Mother Mary," as Lady Greystock in the old Claudia Brewer days used to call her, could ever welcome Horace. She had never liked him; she had always felt that there was some unknown wrong about his seeking and his leaving Claudia; she had been glad that a long absence abroad had kept him from them while her darling Mary had been growing up; and it was with a spasm of fear that she heard of his spending that autumn at her sister's. And yet she had consented to his bringing Mary home. Yes, she had consented, for Mr. Brewer in his overflowing hospitality had asked him to come to them--had regretted that they had seen so little of him of late years--and had himself suggested that he should come when Mary returned.

Nine years does a great deal; it may even pay people's debts sometimes. But it had not paid Horace Erskine's debts: on the contrary, it had added to them with all the bewildering peculiarities that belong to calculations of interests and compound interests. He had got to waiting for another man's death. How many have had to become in heart death-dealers in this way! It was known that he would be his uncle's heir, and his uncle added to what he supposed Horace possessed a good sum yearly; making the man rich as he thought, and causing occasionally a slight passing regret that Horace was so saving. "He might do so much more if he liked on his good income," the elder Mr. Erskine would say. But he did not know of the many sums for ever paying to keep things quiet till death, the great paymaster, should walk in and demand stern rights of himself, the elder, and pass on the gold that we all must leave behind to the nephew, the younger one.

But in the nine years that had passed since the coward took his revenge on a brave woman by doing that which killed her husband, great things had happened to pretty Minnie Lorimer. The "county people" had been after her--those same old families who had flouted her mother, and prophesied eternal poverty to her poor pet baby--fatherless, too! a fact that finished the story of their faults with a note of peculiar infamy.

That a man of good family should marry without money, become the father of a lovely child, and die--that the mother should go back to that old poverty-stricken home where that stiff-looking maid-servant looked so steadily into the faces of all who stood and asked admittance--that they should pretend to be happy!--altogether, it was really too bad.

Why did not Mrs. Lorimer, widow, go out as a governess? Who was to bring up that unfortunate child on a paltry one hundred a year? Of course [{184}] she begged for help. Of course they were supported by Mr. Erskines's charity. A pretty humiliation of Lorimer's friends and relations!

Altogether, the whole of the great Lansdowne Lorimer connection had pronounced that to have that young widow and her daughter belonging to them was a trial very hard to bear. They had not done talking when Mary made that quiet walk to church--no one but her mother and Jenifer being in the secret--and reappeared in the county after a few months' absence as mistress of Beremouth. Mr. Brewer had counted his money, and had told the world what it amounted to. And this time he never apologized, he only confessed himself a person scarcely deserving of respect, because he had done so little good with the mammon of unrighteousness. But Mary now would tell him how to manage. He did perhaps take a little to the humble line. He hoped the world would forget and forgive his former shortcomings; such conduct would assuredly not now be persevered in; and that resolution was fulfilled without any doubt. The splendors of Beremouth were something to talk about, and the range of duties involved in a large hospitality were admirably performed.

Old Lady Caroline, whose pianoforte survived in Mrs. Morier's house at Marston, considered the matter without using quite as many words as her neighbors. "That man will be giving money to Lorimer's child." She was quite right. He had already invested five thousand pounds for Minnie. Lady Caroline (what an odd pride hers was!) went to Beremouth, and got upon business matter with "Mother Mary."

She would give that child five thousand pounds in her will if Mr. Brewer would not give her anything. Alas! it was already given. Mr. Brewer used to count among his faults that, with him, it was too much a word and a blow, especially when a good action was in question, and this curious unusual fault he had decidedly committed in the case of Minnie Lorimer. The money was hers safe enough, invested in the hands of trustees. "Safe enough," said Mr. Brewer exultingly; and then, looking with a saddened air on Lady Caroline, he added, gravely, that it couldn't be helped! "The man's a saint or a fool, I can't tell which," was Lady Caroline's very cute remark. "The most unselfish idiot that ever lived. Does Mary like him, or laugh at him, I wonder?"

But Lady Caroline cultivated Mr. Brewer's acquaintance. Not in an evil way, but because she had been brought up to use the world, and to slave all mankind who would consent to such persecution. Not wickedly, I repeat, but with a fixed intention she cultivated Mr. Brewer, and she got money out of him.

Mr. Brewer still made experiments with ten pounds. He helped Lady Caroline in her many charities, as long as her charities were confined to food and clothing, so much a week to the poor, and getting good nursing for the sick. But once Lady Caroline used that charity purse for purposes of "souping"--it has become an English word, so I do not stop to explain it--and then Mr. Brewer scolded her. Nobody had ever disputed any point with Lady Caroline. But Mr. Brewer explained, with a most unexpected lucidity, how it would be right for him to make her a Catholic, and yet wrong for her to try her notions of conversion on him.

Lady Caroline kept up the quarrel for two years. She upbraided him for his neglect, on his own principles, of Claudia. She abused him for the different conduct pursued about his son. Mr. Brewer confessed his faults and stood by his rights at the same time. Two whole years Lady Caroline quarrelled, and Mr. Brewer never left the field. And afterward, some time after, when Lady Caroline was in her last illness, she said: "I believe that man Brewer may be right after all." When she was dead young Mary Lorimer had double the sum that had [{185}] been originally offered, and Freddy her largest diamond ring.

But another thing had to come out of all this. Mrs. Brewer became a Catholic; and that fact had made her recall her daughter to her side--that fact had made Horace Erskine say, at the inn at Hull, that he dreaded for the girl he, spoke to the influence of the home and the people she was going to--that fact had brought that passion of tears to Mary Lorimer's eyes, and had made her feel so angrily that he had taken an advantage of her.

Here, then, we are back again to the time at which we began the story. Mary got home and was welcomed.

The day after their arrival, if we leave Beremouth and its people, and go into Marston to Mrs. Morier, "old Mrs. Morier" they called her now, we shall see Jenifer walk into the pleasant upstairs drawing-room, where the china glittered on comer-shelves, and large jars stood under the long inlaid table, and say to her mistress: "Eleanor is come, if you please, ma'am."

Mrs. Morier looked up from her knitting. She had been sitting by the window, and the beautiful old lady looked like a picture, as Jenifer often declared, as she turned the face shadowed by fine lace toward her servant with a sweet, gentle air, and smiling said, "And so you want to go to Clayton--and Eleanor is to stay till you come back?" "Yes, ma'am--it's the anniversary." "Go, then," said the gentle lady. "And you must not leave me out of your prayers, my good Jenifer; for you may be sure that I respect and value them." "I'll be back in good time," said Jenifer; and the door closed, and Mrs. Morier continued her knitting.

Soon she saw from the window that incomparable Jenifer. Her brown light stuff gown, the black velvet trimming looking what Jenifer called rich upon the same. Buttons as big as pennies all the way down the front--the good black shawl with the handsome border that had been Mr. Brewer's own present to her on the occasion of his wedding; the fine straw bonnet and spotless white ribbon--the crowning glory of the black lace veil--oh, Jenifer was somebody, I can tell you, at Marston; and Jenifer looked it.

It was with nothing short of a loving smile that Mrs. Morier watched her servant. Servant indeed, but true, tried, and trusty friend also; and when the woman was out of sight, and Mrs. Morier turned her thoughts to Jenifer's prayer, and what little she knew of it, she sighed--the sigh came from deep down, and the sigh was lengthened, and her whole thoughts seemed to rest upon it--it was breathed out, at last, and when it died away Mrs. Morier sat doing nothing in peaceful contemplation till the door opened, and she whom we have heard called Eleanor came in with inquiries as to the proper time for tea.

I think that this Eleanor was perhaps about eight-and-twenty years of age. She was strikingly beautiful. Perhaps few people have ever seen anything more faultlessly handsome than this young woman's form and face. She looked younger than she was. The perfectly smooth brow and the extraordinary fair complexion made her look young. No one would have thought, when looking at Eleanor, that she had ever worked. If the finest and loveliest gentlewoman in the world had chosen to put on a lilac cotton gown, and a white checked muslin apron, and bring up Mrs. Morier's early tea, she would perhaps have looked a little like Eleanor; provided her new employment had not endowed her with a momentary awkwardness. But admiration, when looking at this woman, was a little checked by a sort of atmosphere of pain--or perhaps it was only patience--that surrounded the beautiful face, and showed in every gesture and movement, and rested on the whole being, as it were.

[{186}]

Eleanor suffered. And it was the pain of the mind and heart, not of the body--no one who had sufficient sensibility to see what I have described could ever doubt that the inner woman, not the outer fleshly form of beauty, suffered; and that the woe, whatever it was, had written patience on that too placid brow.

"And are they all well at Dr. Rankin's?" "Very well, ma'am, I believe. I saw Lady Greystock in her own rooms an hour before I came away. I said that I was coming here, and she said"--Eleanor smiled--"Lady Greystock said, ma'am, 'My duty to grandmamma Morier--mind you give the message right.'"

"Ah," said Mrs. Morier, "Lady Greystock is wonderfully well." "There is nothing the matter with her, ma'am." "Except that she never goes to Beremouth." What made the faint carnation mount to Eleanor's face?--what made the woman pause to collect herself before she spoke?--"Oh, ma'am, she is right not to try herself. She'll go there one day." "I suppose you like being at Dr. Rankin's?" "Very much. My place of wardrobe-woman is not hard, but it is responsible. It suits me well. And Mrs. Rankin is very good to me. And I am near Lady Greystock." "How fond you are of her!" "There is not anything I would not do for her," said the woman with animation. "I hope, indeed Dr. Rankin tells me to believe, that I have had a great deal to do with Lady Greystock's cure. She has treated me like a sister; and I can never feel for any one what I feel for her." "Lady Greystock always speaks of you in a truly affectionate way. She says you have known better days." "Different days; I don't say better. I have nothing to wish for. Ever since the time that Lady Greystock determined on staying at Blagden, I have been quite happy." "You came just as she came." "Only two months after." "And did you like her from the first?" "Oh, Mrs. Morier, you know she was very ill when she came. I never thought of love, but of every care and every attention that one woman could show to another. Had it been life for life, I am sure she might have had my life--that was all that I then thought. But when she recovered and loved me for what I had done for her, then it was love for love. Lady Greystock gave me a new life, and I will serve her as long as I may for gratitude, and as a thanksgiving."

When Eleanor was gone, her pleasant manner, her beauty, the music of her voice, and the indescribable grace that belonged to her remained with Mrs. Morier as a pleasant memory, and dwelling on it, she lingered over her early tea, and ate of hashed mutton, making meditation on how Eleanor had got to be Jenifer's great friend; and whether their both being Catholics was enough to account for it.

This while Jenifer walked on toward Clayton. She stood at last on the top of a wide table-land, and looked from the short grass where the wild thyme grew like green velvet, and the chamomile gave forth fragrance as you trod it under foot, down a rugged precipice into the little seaport that sheltered in the cove below. The roofs of the strange, dirty, tumble-down houses were packed thickly below her. The nature of the precipitous cliff was to lie in terraces, and here and there goats and donkeys among the branching fern gave a picturesque variety to the scene, and made the practical Jenifer say to herself that Clayton Cove was not "that altogether abominable" when seen to the best advantage on the afternoon of a rich autumn day. A zigzag path, rather difficult to get upon on account of the steepness of the broken edge and the rolling stones, led from Jenifer's feet down to the terraces; short cuts of steps and sliding stones led from terrace to terrace, and these paths ended, as it appeared to the eye, in a chimney-top that sent up a volume of white smoke, and a [{187}] pleasant scent of wood and burning turf. By the side of the house that owned the chimney, which was whitewashed carefully, and had white blinds inside the green painted wood-work of small sash windows, appeared another roof, long, high, narrow, with a cross on the eastern gable, and that was the Catholic chapel--the house Father Daniels lived in; and after a moment's pause down the path went Jenifer with all the speed that a proper respect for her personal safety permitted. When the woman got to the last terrace, she opened a wicket gate, and was in a sunny garden, still among slopes and terraces, and loaded with flowers. Common flowers no doubt, but who ever saw Father Daniels's Canterbury bells and forgot them? There, safe in the bottom walk, wide, and paved with pebbles from the beach, Jenifer turned not to the right where the trellised back-door invited, but to the left, where the west door of the chapel stood open--and she walked in. There was no one there. She knelt down. After a while she rose, and kneeling before the image of our Lady, said softly: "Mother, she had no mother! Eleven years this day since that marriage by God's priest, and at his holy altar--eleven years this day since that marriage which the laws of the men of this country deny and deride. Mother, she had no mother! Oh, mighty Mother! forget neither of them. Remember her for her trouble, and him for his sin." Not for vengeance but for salvation, she might have added; but Jenifer had never been accustomed to explain her prayers. Then she knelt before the adorable Presence on the altar, and her prayer was very brief--"My life, and all that is in it!"--was it a vain repetition that she said it again and again? Again and again, as she looked back and thought of what it had been; as she thought of that which it was; and knew of the future that, blessed by our Lady's prayers, she should take it, whatever it might be, as the will of God. And so she said it; by so doing offering herself. One great thing had colored all her life; had, to her, been life-- her life; she, with that great shadow on the past, with the weight of the cross on the present, with the fear of unknown ill on the future, gathered together all prayer, all hope, all fear, and gave it to God in those words of offering that were, on her lips, an earnest prayer; the prayer of submission, of offering, of faith--"My life, and all that is in it. "

Jenifer could tell out her wishes to the Mother of God, and had told them, in the words she had used, but it was this woman's way to have no wishes when she knelt before God himself. "My life, and all that is in it;" that was Jenifer's prayer.

After a time she left the chapel, putting pieces of money, many, into the church box, and went into the house. She knew Mrs. Moore, the priest's housekeeper, very well. She was shown into Father Daniels's sitting-room. He was a venerable man of full seventy years of age, and as she entered he put down the tools with which he was carving the ornaments of a wooden altar, and said, "You are later than your note promised. I have therefore been working by daylight, which I don't often do." She looked at the work. It seemed to her to be very beautiful. "It is fine and teak-wood," said Father Daniels; "part of a wreck. They brought it to me for the church. We hope to get up a little mariner's chapel on the south side of the church before long, and I am getting ready the altar as far as I can with my own hands. 'Mary, star of the sea'--that will be our dedication. The faith spreads here. Mistress Jenifer; and I hope we are a little better than we used to be." And Father Daniels crossed himself and thanked God for his grace that had blessed that wild little spot, and made many Christians there. [{188}] Jenifer smiled, as the holy man spoke in a playful tone, and she said, "It is the anniversary, father." "Of Eleanor's marriage. Yes. I remembered her at mass. Has she heard anything of him?" "Yes, father; she has heard his real name, she thinks. She has always suspected, from the time that she first began to suspect evil, that she had never known him by his real name--she never believed his name to be Henry Evelyn, as he said when he married her."

"And what is his real name?"

"Horace Erskine," said Jenifer.

"What!" exclaimed Father Daniels, with an unusual tone of alarm in his voice. "The man who was talked of for Lady Greystock before she married--the nephew of Mrs. Brewer's sister's husband!" "Yes, sir." "Is she sure?" "No. She has not seen him. But she has traced him, she thinks. Corny Nugent, who is her second cousin, and knew them both when the marriage took place, went as a servant to the elder Mr. Erskine, and knew Henry Evelyn, as they called him in Ireland, when he came back from abroad. He thought he knew him. Then Horace Erskine, finding he was an Irishman, would joke him about his religion, and how he was the only Catholic in the house, and how he was obliged to walk five miles to mass. Time was when Mr. Erskine, the uncle, would not have kept a Catholic servant. But since Mr. and Mrs. Brewer married, he has been less bigoted. He took Corny Nugent in London. It was just a one season's engagement. But when they were to return to Scotland they proposed to keep him on, and he stayed. After a little Horace Erskine asked him about Ireland; and even if he knew such and such places; and then he came by degrees to the very place--the very people--to his own knowledge of them. Corny gave crafty answers. But he disliked the sight of the man, and the positions he put him into. So he left. He left three months ago. And he found out Eleanor's direction, and told her that surely--surely and certainly--her husband, Henry Evelyn, was no other than his late master's nephew, who had been trying to marry more than one, only always some unlooked-for and unaccountable thing had happened to prevent it. Our Lady be praised, for her prayers have kept off that last woe--I make no doubt--thank God!"

"How many years is it since they married?" "Eleven, to-day. I keep the anniversary. He is older than he looks. He is thirty-two, this year, if he did not lie about his age, as well as everything else. He told Father Power he was of age. He said, too--God forgive him--that he was a Catholic."

"But when I followed Father Power at Rathcoyle," said the priest, "there was no register of the marriage. I was sent for on the afternoon of the marriage day. I found Father Power in a dying state. He was an old man, and had long been infirm. The marriage was not entered. It was known to have taken place. Your niece and her husband were gone. I walked out that evening to your brother's farm. He knew nothing of the marriage. He had received a note to say that Eleanor was gone with her husband, and that they would hear from them when they got to England. Why Father Power, who was a saintly man, married them, I do not know. It was unlawful for him to marry a Catholic and a Protestant. If your sister went through no other marriage, she has no claim on her Protestant husband. If she could prove that he passed himself off as a Catholic, she might have some ground against him--but, can she?"

"No, sir; on the contrary, she knew that she was marrying a Protestant; she had hopes of converting him; she learnt from [{189}] himself, afterward, that he had deceived the priest. She had said to him that she would many him if Father Power consented. He came back and said that the consent had been given. He promised to marry her in Dublin conformably to the license he had got there--or there he had lived the proper time for getting one, so he declared. But I have ceased to believe anything he said. Then my brother wrote the girl a dreadful letter to the direction in Liverpool that she had sent to him. Then, after some months, she wrote to me at Marston. She was deserted, and left in the Isle of Man. She supported herself there for more than a year. I told Mr. Brewer that I knew a sad story of the daughter of a friend, and one of her letters, saying her last gold was changed into silvery and that she was too ill and worn oat to win more, was so dreadful, that I feared for her mind. So Mr. Brewer went to Dr. Rankin, and got her taken in as a patient, at first, and when she got well she was kept on as wardrobe-woman. She had got a tender heart; when she heard of Lady Greystock's trial, she took to her. Dr. Rankin says he could never have cured Lady Greystock so perfectly nor so quickly, but for Eleanor."

"That is curious," said Father Daniels, musingly. "Have you been in Ireland since the girl left it with her husband?"

"I never was there in my life. My mother was Irish, and she lived as a servant in England. She married an Englishman, and she had two daughters, my sister--Eleanor's mother--and myself. My mother went back to Ireland a year after her husband's death, on a visit, and she left my sister and me with my father's family. She married in Ireland almost directly, and married well, a man with a good property, a farmer. She died, and left one son. My sister and I were four and five years older than this half-brother of ours. Then time wore on and my sister Ellen went to Ireland, and she married there, and the fever came to the place where they lived, and carried them both off, and she left me a legacy--my niece Eleanor--oh, sir I with such a holy letter of recommendation from her death-bed. Poor sister! Poor, holy soul! Our half-brother asked to have Eleanor to stay with him when she knew enough to be useful on the farm. He was a good Christian, and I let him take the girl. She was very pretty, people said, and I wished her to marry soon. Then there came--sent, he said, by a great rich English nobleman--a man who called himself a gardener, or something of that sort. He lodged close by; he made friends with my brother. He was often off after rare bog-plants, and seemed to lead a busy if an easy life. He would go to mass with them. But they knew he was a Protestant. Eleanor knew that her uncle would not consent to her marrying a Protestant. But, poor child, she gave her heart away to the gentleman in disguise. He had had friends there--a fishing party. Sir, he never intended honorably; but they were married by the priest, and he got over the holy man, whom everybody loved and honored, with his falseness, as he had got over the true-hearted and trusting woman whom he had planned to desert."

"Well," said Father Daniels, "you know I succeeded this priest for a short time at Rathcoyle. He died on that wedding day. I never understood how it all happened. I left a record to save Eleanor's honor; but she has no legal claim on her husband--it ought not to have been done." Jenifer shrank beneath the plainness of that truth--"My life, and all that is in it," her heart said, sinking, as it were, at the sorrow that had come on the girl whom her sister had left to her with her dying breath.

"She ought not to have trusted a man who was a Protestant, and not willing to marry her in the only way that is legal by the Irish marriage-law." "My life, and all that is in it." [{190}] So hopelessly fell on her heart every word that the priest spoke, that, but for that offering of all things to God, poor Jenifer could scarcely have borne her trial.

"And if this Henry Evelyn should turn out to be Horace Erskine, why, he will marry some unhappy woman some time, of course, and the law of the land will give him one wife, and by the law of God another woman will claim him. Oh, if people would but obey holy church, and not try to live under laws of their own inventing." "My life, and all that is in it!" Again, only that could have made Jenifer bear the trials that were presented to her.

"And if gossip spoke truth he was very near marrying Lady Greystock once--Mr. Brewer, himself, thought it was going to be." One more great act of submission--"My life, and all that is in it!"--came forth from Jenifer's heart. She loved Mr. Brewer, with a faithful sort of worship--if such a trial as that had come on him through her trouble!--that was over; that had been turned aside; but the thought gave rise to a question, even as she thanked God for the averted woe.

'"Is it Eleanor's duty to find out if Henry Evelyn and Horace Erskine are one?" "Yes," said the priest "Yes; it is. It is everybody's duty to prevent mischief. It is her duty, as far as lies in her power, to prevent sin."

"And if it proves true--that which Corny Nugent says, what then?"

"Be content for the present. It is a very difficult case to act in."

Poor Jenifer felt the priest to be sadly wanting in sympathy--she turned again to him who knows all and feels all, and she offered up the disappointment that would grow up in her heart--"My life, and all that is in it!"

She turned to go; and then Father Daniels spoke so kindly, so solemnly, with such a depth of sympathy in the tone of his voice--"God bless you, my child;" and the sign of the cross seemed to bless her sensibly. "Thank you, father!" And, without lifting her eyes, she left the room and the house; and still saying that prayer that had grown to be her strength and her help, she went up the steep rugged path to the spreading down; and then she turned round and looked on the great sea heaving, lazily under the sunset rays, that painted it in the far distance with gold and red, and a silvery light, till it touched the ruby-colored sky, and received each separate ray of glory on its breast just where earth and heaven seemed to meet--just where you could fancy another world looking into the depths of the great sea that flowed up into its gates. It seemed to do Jenifer good. The whole scene was so glorious, and the glory was so far-spreading--all the world seemed to rest around her bathed in warm light and basking in the smile of heaven. She stood still and said again, in a sweet soft voice: "My life, and all that is in it!"

Her great dread that day when Mr. Brewer had told her to put him and his into her prayer, had been lest the punishment of sin should come on the man who had deserted her dear girl, and lest that sin's effect in a heart-broken disease should fall on the girl herself.

When Mr. Brewer said, "Put me and mine into that prayer, Jenifer," the thought had risen that she would tell him of Eleanor. She had told him, and he had helped her. But she had never thought that, by acting on the impulse, the two women whose hearts Horace Erskine had crushed, as a wilful child breaks his playthings when he has got tired or out of temper, had been brought together under one roof, and made to love each other. Yet so it had been. The woman who could do nothing but pray had prayed; and a thing had been done which no human contrivance could have effected. And as Jenifer stood gazing on the heavens that grew brighter and brighter, and on the water that reflected every glory, and seemed to bask with a living motion in the great magnificence that was poured upon it, she recollected how great a pain had been [{191}] spared her; she thought how terrible it would have been if Claudia Brewer had married Horace Erskine--Horace Erskine, the husband of the deserted Eleanor; and she gave thanks to God.

Now she drew her shawl tighter round her, and walked briskly on. She got across the down, and over a stone stile in the fence that was its boundary from the road. She turned toward Marston, and walked fast--it was almost getting cold after that glorious sunset, and she increased her pace and went on rapidly. She soon saw a carriage in the road before her, driving slowly, and meeting her. When it came near enough to recognize her, the lady who drove let her ponies go, and then pulled up at Jenifer's side. "Now, Mistress Jenifer," said Lady Greystock, looking bright and beautiful in the black hat, and long streaming black feather, that people wore in those days, "here am I to drive you home. I knew where you were going. Eleanor tells me her secrets. Do you know that? This is an anniversary; and you give gifts and say prayers. Are you comfortable? I am going to drive fast to please the ponies; they like it, you know." And very true did Lady Greystock's words seem; for the little creatures given their heads went off at a pace that had in it every evidence of perfect good will. "I came to drive you back, and to pick up Eleanor, and drive her to Blagden after I had delivered you up safely to grandmamma Morier. Mother Mary came to see me this afternoon. You had better go and see Minnie soon. Jenifer"--Jenifer looked up surprised at a strange tone in Lady Greystock's voice---"Jenifer," speaking very low, "if you can pray for my father and his wife, and all he loves, pray now. It would be hard for a man to be trapped by the greatness of his own good heart."

"Is there anything wrong, my dear?" Jenifer spoke softly, and just as she had been used to speak to the Claudia Brewer of old days.

"I can't say more," Lady Greystock replied; "here we are at Marston." Then she talked of common things; and told James, the man-servant, to drive the horses up and down the street while she bade Mrs. Morier "Good night." And they went into the house, and half an hour after Lady Greystock and Eleanor had got into the pony carriage, and were driving away. The quiet street was empty once more. The little excitement made by Lady Greystock and her ponies subsided. Good-byes were spoken, and the quiet of night settled down on the streets and houses of Marston.

Jenifer had wondered over Lady Greystock's words; and comforted herself, and stilled her fears, and set her guesses all at rest by those few long-used powerful words--"My life, and all that is in it!" She offered life, and gave up its work and its trials to God; and Jenifer, too, was at rest then.

But at Clayton things were not quite in the same peaceful state as in that little old-fashioned inland town. Clayton was very busy; and among the busy ones, though busy in his own way, was Father Daniels.

That morning a messenger had brought him a packet from Mrs. Brewer; for "Mother Mary" since becoming a Catholic had wanted advice, and wanted strength, and she had sought and found what she wanted, and now she had sent to the same source for further help. As soon as Jenifer was gone, Father Daniels put away his teak-wood and his carving tools, and packed up his drawings and his pencils. He was a man of great neatness, and his accuracy in all business, and his fruitful recollection of every living soul's wants, as far as they had ever been made known to him, were charming points of his character-- points, that is, natural gifts, that the great charity which belonged to his priesthood adorned and made meritorious. [{192}] While he "tidied away his things," as his housekeeper Mrs. Moore used to say, bethought and he prayed--his mind foresaw great possible woe; he knew, with the knowledge that is made up of faith and experience united, that some things seem plainly to know no other master than prayer. People are prayed out of troubles that no other power can touch. Every now and then this fact seems to be imprinted in legible characters on some particular woe, actual or threatened; and though Father Daniels, like a holy priest, prayed always and habitually, he yet felt, as we have said, with respect to the peculiar entanglements that the letter from Mrs. Brewer in the morning and the revelation made by Jenifer in the afternoon seemed to threaten. So, when he again sat down, it was with Mrs. Brewer's letter before him on the table, and a lamp lighted, and "the magnifiers," to quote Mrs. Moore again, put on to make the deciphering of Mrs. Erskine's handwriting as easy as possible. Mrs. Brewer's was larger, blacker, plainer--and her note was short. It only said: "Read my sister's letter, which I have just received. It seems so hard to give up the child; it would be much harder to see her less happy than she has always been at home. I don't like Horace Erskine. It is as if I was kept from liking him. I really have no reason for my prejudice against him. Come and see me if you can, and send or bring back the letter." Having put this aside. Father Daniels opened Mrs. Erskine's letter. It must be given just as it was written to the reader:

DEAREST MARY:
"You must guess how dreadful your becoming a Catholic is to us. I cannot conceive why, when you had been happy so long--these thirteen years--you should do this unaccountable thing now. There must have been some strange influence exercised over you by Mr. Brewer. I feared how it might be when, nine years ago, your boy was born, and you gave him up so weakly. However, I think you will see plainly that you have quite forfeited a mother's rights over Mary. She is seventeen, and will not have a happy home with you now. Poor child, she would turn Catholic to please you, and for peace sake, perhaps. But you cannot wish such a misery for her. She will, I suppose, soon be the only Protestant in your house. I can't help blaming old Lady Caroline, even after her death; for she certainly brought the spirit of controversy into Beremouth, and stirred up Mr. Brewer to think of his rights. Now, I write to propose what is simply an act of justice on your part, though really, I must say, an act of great grace on the part of my husband. Horace is in love with Mary. As to the fancy he was supposed to have for Claudia, I know that that was only a fancy. He was taken with her wilful, spoilt-child ways--you certainly did not train her properly--and he wanted her money. Of course as you had been married four years without children, he did not suspect anything about Freddy. It was an entanglement well got rid of; and Claudia wanted no comforting, that was plain enough. But it is different now. Horace is in love now. And if Mary is not made a Catholic by Mr. Brewer and you and old Jenifer, she will say, 'Yes,' like a good child. We are extremely fond of her. And Mr. Erskine generously offers to make a very handsome settlement on her. I consider a marriage, and a very speedy one, with Horace the best thing; now that you have, by your own act, made her home so homeless to her. I am sure you ought to be very thankful for so obviously good an arrangement of difficulties. Let me hear from you as soon as Horace arrives. He is going to speak to you directly.
"Your affectionate sister,
"Lucia Erskine.
"P.S.--As Mr. Brewer has always said that, Mary being his adopted child, he should pay her on her marriage the full interest of the money which will be hers at twenty-one, [{193}] of course Horace expects that, as we do. Lady Caroline's ten thousand, Mr. Brewer's five thousand, and the hundred a year for which her father insured his life, and which I find that you give to her, will, with Horace's means, make a good income; and to this Mr. Erskine will, as Mary is my niece, add very liberally. I cannot suppose that you can think of objecting. L. E."

Father Daniels read this letter over very carefully. Then he placed it, with Mrs. Brewer's note, in his pocket-book, and immediately putting on his hat, and taking his stick, he walked into the kitchen.

"Where's your husband?" to Mrs. Moore.

"Mark is only just outside, sir."

"I shall be back soon. Tell him to saddle the cob." One of Mr. Brewer's experiments had been to give Father Daniels a horse, and to endow the horse with fifty pounds a year, for tax, keep, house-rent, physic, saddles, shoes, clothing, and general attendance. It was, we May say as we pass on, an experiment which answered to perfection. The cob's turnpikes alone remained as a grievance in Mr. Brewer's mind. He rather cherished the grievance. Somehow it did him good. It certainly deprived him of all feeling of merit. All thought of his own generosity was extinguished beneath the weight of a truth that could not be denied--"that cob is a never-ending expense to Father Daniels!" However, this time, without a thought of the never-ending turnpike's tax, the cob was ordered; being late, much to Mr. and Mrs. Moore's surprise; and Father Daniels walked briskly out of the garden, down the village seaport, past the coal-wharves, where everything looked black and dismal, and so pursued his way on the top of the low edge of the cliff, to a few tidy-looking houses half a mile from Clayton, which were railed in from the turfy cliff-side, and had painted on their ends, "Good bathing here." The houses were in a row. He knocked at the centre one, and it was opened by a man of generally a seafaring cast. "Mr. Dawson in?" "Yes, your reverence. His reverence, Father Dawson, is in the parlor;" and into the parlor walked Father Daniels. It was a short visit made to ascertain if his invalid friend could say mass for him the next morning at a later hour than usual--the hour for the parish mass, in fact; and to tell him why. They were dear friends and mutual advisers. They now talked over Mrs. Erskine's letter.

"There can be no reason in the world why Miss Lorimer should not marry Horace Erskine if she likes him, provided he is not Henry Evelyn. He stands charged with being Henry Evelyn, and of being the doer of Henry Evelyn's deeds. You must tell Mrs. Brewer. It is better never to tell suspicions, if you can, instead, tell facts. In so serious a matter you may be obliged to tell suspicions, just to keep mischief away at the beginning. Eleanor must see the man. As to claiming him, that's useless. She acted the unwise woman's part, and she most bear the unwise woman's recompense. He'll find somebody to marry him, no doubt; but no woman ought to do it; no marriage of his can be right in God's sight. So the course in the present instance is plain enough." Yes, it was plain enough; so Father Daniels walked back to Clayton and mounted the cob, and rode away through the soft sweet night air, and got to Beremouth just after ten o'clock.

"I am come to say mass for you to-morrow," he said to Mr. Brewer, who met him in the hall. "No, I won't go into the drawing-room. I won't see any one to-night. I am going straight to the chapel."

[{194}]

"Ring for night prayers then in five minutes, will you?" said Mr. Brewer. And Father Daniels, saying "Yes," walked on through the hall, and up the great stair-case to his own room and the chapel, which, were side by side. In five minutes the chapel bell was rung by the priest. Mrs. Brewer looked toward her daughter. "Mary must do as she likes;" said Mr. Brewer, in his open honest way driving his wife before him out of the room. There stood Horace Erskine. It was as if all in a moment the time for the great choice had come. They were at the door--the girl stood still. They were gone, they were crossing the hall; she could hear Mr. Brewer's shoes on the carpet--not too late for her to follow. Her light step will catch theirs--they may go a little further still before the very last moment comes. Her mother or Horace? How dearly she loved her mother, how her child's heart went after her, all trust and love--and Horace, did she love him?--love him well enough to stay there--there and then, at a moment that would weigh so very heavily in the scale of good and evil, right or wrong? If he had not been there she might have stayed, if she stayed now that he was there, should she not stay with him--more, leave her mother and stay with him? Thought is quick. She stood by the table; she looked toward the door, she listened--Horace held out his hand--"With me, Mary--with me!" And she was gone. Gone even while he spoke, across the hall, up the stairs and at that chapel door just as this last of the servants, without knowing, closed it on her. Then Mary went to her own room just at the head of the great stair-case, and opened the doors softly, and knelt down, keeping it open, letting the stair-case lamp stray into the darkness just enough to show her where she was. There she knelt till the night prayers were over, and when Mr. Brewer passed her door, she came out, a little glad to show them that she had not been staying down stairs with Horace. He smiled, and put his hand inside her arm and stopped her from going down. "My dear child," he said, "I have had the great blessing of my life given to me in the conversion of your mother. If God's great grace, for the sake of his own blessed mother, should fall on you, you will not quench it, my darling. Meanwhile, I shall never have a better time than this time to say, that I feel more than ever a father to you. That if you will go on treating me with the childlike candor and trust that I have loved to see in you, you will make me happier than you can ever guess at, dear child." And then he kissed her, and Minnie eased her heart by a few sobs and tears, and her head rested on his shoulder, and she thanked him for his love. Then Father Daniels came out of the chapel, and advanced to where they stood. Mary had long known the holy man. He saw how it was in an instant. "Welcome home, Mary; you see I come soon. And now--when I am saying mass to-morrow, stay quietly in your own room, and pray to be taught to love God. Give yourself to him. Don't trouble about questions. His you are. Rest on the thought--and we will wait on what may come of it. I shall remember you at mass to-morrow. Good-night. God bless you."

"I can't come down again. My eyes are red," said Mary, to Mr. Brewer, when they were again alone. And he laughed at her. "I'll send mamma up," he said. And Mary went into her room. But she had taken no part against her mother; so her heart said, and congratulated itself. She had not left her, and stayed with Horace. She had had those few words with her step-father. That was over, and very happily too. She had seen Father Daniels again. It was getting speedily like the old things, and the old times, before the long visit to Scotland, where Horace Erskine was the sun of her [{195}] new world. Somehow she felt that he was losing power every moment--also she felt, a little resentfully, that there had been things said or thought, or insinuated, about the dear home she was loving so well, which were unjust, untrue, unkind; nay, more, cruel, shameful!--and so wrong to unite her to such ideas; to make her a party to such thoughts. In the midst of her resentment, her mother came in. "Nobody ever was so charming looking," was the first thought. "How young she looks--how much younger and handsomer than Aunt Erskine. What a warm loving atmosphere this house always had, and has. " The last word with the emphasis of a perfect conviction. "And so you have made your eyes red on papa's coat--and I had to wipe the tears off with my pocket-handkerchief. Oh, you darling, I am sure Horace Erskine thought we had beaten you!" Then kisses, and laughter; not quite without a tear or two on both, sides, however. "Now, my darling, Horace has told us his love story--and so he is very fond of you?" "Mamma, mamma, I love you better than all the earth." Kisses, laughter, and just one or two tears, all over again.

"My darling child, you have been some months away from us--do you think you can quite tell your own mind on a question which is life-long in its results? I mean, that the thing that is pleasant in one place may not be so altogether delightful in another. I should like you to decide so great a question while in the full enjoyment of your own rights here. This is your home. This is what you will have to exchange for something else when you marry. You are very young to marry--not eighteen, remember. Whenever you decide that question, I should like you to decide it on your own ground, and by your own mother's side."

"I wonder whether you know how wise you are?" was the question that came in answer. "Do you know, mother, that I cried like a baby at Hull, because I felt all you have said, and even a little more, and thought he was unkind to press me. You know Aunt Erskine had told me; and Horace, too, in a way--and he said at Hull he dreaded the influence of this place, and--and--" "But there is nothing for you to dread. This home is yours; and its influence is good; and all the love you command here is your safety." Mrs. Brewer spoke boldly, and quite with the spirit of heroism. She was standing up for her rights. But Mr. Brewer stood at the door. "The lover wants to smoke in the park in the moonlight. Some information just to direct his thoughts, you little witch," for his step-child had tried to stop his mouth with a kiss--

"Papa, I am so happy. I won't, because I can't, plan to leave everything I love best in the world just as I come back to it." "But you must give Erskine some kind of an answer. The poor fellow is really very much in earnest. Come and see him." "No, I won't," said Mary, very much as the wilful Claudia might have uttered the words. But Mary was thinking that there was a great contrast between the genial benevolence she had come to, and the indescribable something which was not benevolence in which she had lived ever since her mother had become a Catholic. Mr. Brewer almost started. "I mean, papa, that I must live here unmolested at least one month before I can find out whether I am not always going to love you best of all mankind. Don't you think you could send Horace off to Scotland again immediately?" "Bless the child! Think of the letters that have passed--you read them, or knew of them?" "Knew of them," said Mary, nodding her head confidentially, and looking extremely naughty. "Well; and I asked him here!" "Yes; I know that." "And you now tell me to send him away! [{196}] My dear!" exclaimed Mr. Brewer, looking appealingly at his wife. "Dearest, you must tell Mr. Erskine that Mary really would like to be left quiet for awhile. Say so now; and to-morrow you can suggest his going soon, and returning in a few weeks." "And to-morrow I can have a cold and lie in bed. Can't I?" said Mary. But now they ceased talking, and heard Horace Erskine go out of the door to the portico. "There! he's gone. And I am sure I can smell a cigar--and I could hate smoking, couldn't I?" Mother and father now scolded the saucy child, and condemned her to solitude and sleep. And when they were gone the girl put her head out of the open window, and gazed across the spreading park, so peaceful in its far-stretching flat, just roughened in places by the fern that had begun to get brown under the hot sun; and then she listened to the sound of the wind that came up in earnest whispers from the woody corners, and the far-off forests of oak. The sound rose and fell like waves, and the silence between those low outpourings of mysterious sound was loaded with solemnity.

Do the whispering woods praise him; and are their prayers in the tall trees? She was full of fancies that night. But the words Father Daniels had said to her seemed to her to come again on the night-breeze, and then she was quiet and still. And yet--and yet--though she tried to forget, and tried to keep her mind at peace, the spirit within would rise from its rest, and say that she had left an atmosphere of evil speaking and uncharitableness; that malice and harsh judgment had been hard at work, and all to poison home, and to win her from it.

And while she was trying to still these troublings of the mind, Mr. Brewer, by her mother's side, was reading for the first time Mrs. Erskine's letter, which Father Daniels had returned. "My dear, my dear," said Mr. Brewer, "a very improper letter. I think Mary is a very extraordinary girl not to have been prejudiced against me. I shall always feel grateful to her. And as to this letter, which I call a very painful letter, don't you think we had better burn it?" And so, by the assistance of a lighted taper, Mr. Brewer cleared that evil thing out of his path for ever.

"Eleanor," said Lady Greystock, "how lovely this evening is. The moon is full, and how glorious! Shall we drive by a roundabout way to Blagden? James," speaking to the man who occupied the seat behind, "how far is it out of our way if we go through the drive in Beremouth Park, and come out by the West Lodge into the Blagden turnpike road?" "It will be two miles further, my lady. But the road is very good, and the carriage will run very light over the gravelled road in the park." "Then we'll go." So on getting to the bottom of the street in which Mrs. Morier lived, Lady Greystock took the road to Beremouth; and the ponies seemed to enjoy the change, and the whole world, except those three who were passing so pleasantly through a portion of it, seemed to sleep beneath the face of that great moon, wearing, as all full moons do, a sweet grave look of watching on its face.

"Isn't it glorious? Isn't it grand, this great expanse and this perfect calm? Ah, there goes a bat; and a droning beetle on the wing just makes one know what silence we are passing through. How pure the air feels. Oh, what blessings we have in life--how many more than we know of. I think of that in the still evenings often. Do you, Eleanor?"

"Yes, Lady Greystock." But Eleanor spoke in a very calm, business-like, convinced sort of manner; not the least infected by the tears of tenderness and the poetical feeling that Lady Greystock had betrayed.

[{197}]

"Yes, Lady Greystock And when in great moments"--"Great moments! I like that," said Claudia--"when I have those thoughts I think of you." "Of me?" "Yes. And I am profoundly struck by the goodness of God, who endowed the great interest of my life with so powerful an attraction for me. I must have either liked or disliked you. I am so glad to love you."

"Eleanor, I wish you would tell me the story of your life." They had passed through the lodge gates now, and were driving through Beremouth Park. "You were not always what you are now."

"You will know it one day," said Eleanor, softly. "Oh, see how the moon comes out from behind that great fleecy cloud; just in time to light us as we pass through the shadows which these grand oaks cast. What lines of silver light lie on the road before us. It is a treat to be out in such a place on such a night as this. Stay, stay, Lady Greystock. What is that?"

Lady Greystock pulled up suddenly, and standing full in the moonlight, on the turf at the side of the carriage, was a tall, strong-built man. He took off his cap with a respectful air, and said, "I beg pardon. I did not intend to stop you. But if you will allow me I will ask your servant a question." He addressed Lady Greystock, and did not seem to look at Eleanor, though she was nearest to him. Eleanor had suddenly pulled a veil over her face; but Lady Greystock had taken hers from her hat, and her uncovered face was turned toward the man with the moonlight full upon it. He said to the servant, "Can you tell me where a person called Eleanor Evelyn is to be found? Mrs. Evelyn she is probably called. I want to know where she is." Before James, who had long known the person by his mistress's side as Mrs. Evelyn, could speak, or recover from his very natural surprise, Eleanor herself spoke. "Yes," she said, "Mrs. Evelyn lives not far from Marston. I should advise you to call on Mrs. Jenifer Stanton, who lives at Marston with Mrs. Morier. She will tell you about her." "She who lives with Madam Morier, of course?" said the man. "Yes; the same." "Goodnight."

"Good night," said Lady Greystock in answer, and obeying Eleanor's whispered "Drive on," she let the ponies, longing for their stable, break into their own rapid pace, and, soon out of the shadows, they were in the light--the broad, calm, silent light--once more.

TO BE CONTINUED

---

[{198}]

Translated from Le Correspondant
A PRETENDED DERVISH IN TURKESTAN. [Footnote 35]
BY ÉMILE JONVEAUX

[Footnote 35: "Herman Vambéry's Travels In Central Asia." Original German edition. Leipzic: Brockhaus,1865. Paris: Xavier. French translation by M. Forgues. Paris: Hachette.]

A brilliant imagination, a sparkling and ready wit, an indomitable energy, the happy gift of seeing and painting man and things in a lively manner, such are the qualities which we remark at first in the new explorer of central Asia. But he is not only a bold traveller, a delightful story-teller, full of spirit and originality, we must recognize also in him a learned orientalist, an eminent ethnologist and linguist.

Born in 1832, in a small Hungarian town, he began at an early age to study with passion the different dialects of Europe and Asia, endeavoring to discover the relations between the idioms of the East and West. Observing the strong affinity which exists between the Hungarian and the Turco-Tartaric dialects, and resolved to return to the cradle of the Altaic tongues, he went to Constantinople and frequented the schools and libraries with an assiduity which in a few years made of him a true effendi. But the nearer he approached the desired end, the greater was his thirst for knowledge. Turkey began to appear to his eyes only the vestibule of the Orient; he resolved to go on, and to seek even in the depths of Asia the original roots of the idioms and races of Europe. [Footnote 36] In vain his friends represented to him the fatigues and perils of such a tour. Infirm as he was (a wound had made him lame), could he endure a long march over those plains of sand where he would be obliged to fight against the terror of tempest, the tortures of thirst--where, in fine, he might encounter death under a thousand forms? and then, how was he to force his way among those savage and fanatic tribes, who are afraid of travellers; and who a few years before had destroyed Moorcraft, Conolly, and Stoddart? Nothing could shake the resolution of Vambéry; he felt strong enough to brave suffering, and as to the dangers which threatened him from man, his bold and inventive spirit would furnish him the means to avert them in calling to his assistance their very superstitions. Was he not as well versed in the knowledge of the Koran and the customs of Islam as the most devout disciple of the Prophet? He would disguise himself in the costume of a pilgrim dervish, and so would go through Asia, distributing everywhere benedictions, but making secretly his scientific studies and remarks. His foreign physiognomy might, it is true, raise against him some obstacles. But he counted on his happy star, and, above all, on his presence of mind, to succeed at last. These difficulties were renewed often in the course of his adventurous tour; more than once the suspicious look of some powerful tyrant was fixed upon him as if to say: "Your features betray you; you are a European!" The extraordinary coolness, the ingenious expedients to which Vambéry had recourse in these emergencies, give to the story of his travels an interest which novelists and dramatists might envy. To this powerful charm, the work of which we give a rapid sketch unites the merit of containing [{199}] the most valuable notes on the social and political relations, the manners and character, of the races which inhabit Central Asia.

[Footnote 36: The linguistic and ethnographical studies form a separate volume, which the author proposes to publish very soon.]

I.

It was early in July, 1862, that Vambéry, leaving Tabriz, began his long and perilous journey. Persia, at this period of the year, does not offer the enchanting spectacle which the enthusiastic descriptions of poets lead us to imagine. This boasted country displays only to the eye a heaven of fire, burning and desert plains, through the midst of which sometimes advances slowly a caravan covered with dust, exhausted by fatigue and heat. After a monotonous and painful march of fifteen days, our traveller sees at last rising from the horizon the outlines of a number of domes, half lost in a bluish fog. This is Teheran, the celestial city, the seat of sovereignty, as the natives pompously call it.

It was not easy to penetrate into this noble city; a compact crowd filled the streets, asses, camels, mules laden with straw, barley, and other marketable articles jostled each other in the strangest confusion. "Take care! Take care!" vociferated the passers-by; each one pressed, pushed, and blows of sticks and even of sabres were distributed with surprising liberality. Vambéry succeeded in getting safe and sound out of this tumult; he repaired to the summer residence of the Turkish ambassador, where all the effendis were assembled under a magnificent silken tent. Haydar Effendi, who represented the sultan at the court of the Shah, had known the Hungarian traveller in Constantinople; he received him most cordially, and very soon the guests, gathered round a splendid banquet, began to call up souvenirs of Stamboul, of the Bosphorus, and their delightful landscapes, so different from the arid plains of Persia.

The contrast of character is not less noticeable between the two nations who divide the supremacy of the Mohammedan world. The Ottoman, in consequence of his close relations with the West, is more and more penetrated by European manners and civilization, and gains by this contact an incontestable superiority. The Persian preserves more the primitive type of the Orientals, his mind is more poetic, his intelligence more prompt, his courtesy more refined; but proud of an antiquity which loses itself in the night of time, he is deeply hostile to our sciences and arts, of which he does not comprehend the importance. Some choice spirits, indeed, have endeavored to rejuvenate the worm-eaten institutions of Persia, and to lead their country in the way of progress. The pressing solicitations of the minister Ferrukh Khan engaged, some years ago, several nations of Europe, Belgium, Prussia, Italy, to send ambassadors in the hope of forming political and commercial relations with Iran; but their efforts were checked, Persia not being ripe for this regeneration.

Thanks to the generous hospitality of Haydar Effendi, Vambéry was rested from his fatigues. Impatient to continue his journey, he wished to take immediately the road to Herat; his friends dissuaded him from it, because the hostilities just declared between the sultan of this province and the sovereign of the Afghans rendered communications impossible. The northern route was quite as impracticable; it would have been necessary to cross during the winter months the vast deserts of central Asia. The traveller was forced to await a more favorable season. To remove gradually the obstacles which prevented the realization of his plan, he began immediately to draw around him the dervishes who every year pass through Teheran on their way to Turkey. These pilgrims or hadjis never fail to address themselves to the Ottoman embassy, for they are all Sunnites and [{200}] recognize the emperor of Constantinople as their spiritual head; Persia, on the contrary, belongs to the sect of the Shiites, who may be called the Protestants of Islam, with so profound a horror have they inspired the faithful believers of Khiva, Bokhara, Samarcande, etc. Vambéry, who proposed to visit all these fanatic states, had then adopted the character of a pious and zealous Sunnite. Very soon it was noised abroad among the pilgrims that Reschid Effendi (nom de guerre of our traveller) treated the dervishes as brothers, and that he was no doubt himself a dervish in disguise.

In the morning of the 20th of March, 1862, four hadjis presented themselves before him whom they regarded as the devoted protector of their sect. They came to complain of Persian officials who, on their return from Mecca, had imposed upon them an abusive tax long since abolished. "We do not demand the money of his excellency the ambassador," said he who appeared to be the chief; "the only object of our prayers is, that in future the Sunnites may be able to visit the holy places without being forced to endure the exactions of the infidel Shiites." Surprised at the disinterestedness of this language, Vambéry considered more attentively the austere countenances of his guests. In spite of their miserable clothing, a native nobility discovered itself in them; their words were frank, their looks intelligent. The little caravan of which they made a part, composed in all of twenty-four persons, was returning to Bokhara. The resolution of the European was immediately taken; he said to the pilgrims that for a long time he had had an extreme desire to visit Turkestan, this hearth of Islamite piety, this holy land which contained the tombs of so many saints. "Obedient to this sentiment," said he, "I have quitted Turkey; for many months I have awaited in Persia a favorable opportunity, and I thank God that have at last found companions with whom I may be able to continue my journey and accomplish my purpose."

The Tartars were at first much astonished. How could an effendi, accustomed to a life of luxury, resolve to encounter so many dangers, to endure so many trials? The ardent faith of the pretended Sunnite was hardly efficient to explain this prodigy, so the dervishes felt themselves bound to enlighten him on the sad consequences to which this excess of zeal might expose him. "We shall travel," they said, "for whole weeks without encountering a single dwelling, without finding the least rivulet where we can quench our thirst. More than that, we shall run the risk of perishing by the robbers who infest the desert, or of being swallowed up alive by tempests of sand. Reflect again, seigneur effendi, we would not be the cause of your death." These words were not without their effect, but, after coming so far, Vambéry was not easily discouraged. "I know," said he to the pilgrims, "that this world is an inn where we sojourn for some days, and from which we soon depart to give place to new travellers. I pity those restless spirits who, not content with having thought of the present, embrace in their solicitude a long future. Take me with you, my friends; I am weary of this kingdom of error, and I long to leave it."

Perceiving in him so firm a resolve, the chiefs of the caravan received the pretended Reschid as a travelling companion. A fraternal embrace ratified this engagement, and the European felt not without some repugnance the contact of these ragged garments which long use had impregnated with a thousand offensive odors.

Following the advice of one of the dervishes, Hadji Bilal, who entertained a particular friendship for him, the traveller cut his hair, adopted the Bokhariot costume, and the better to play the part of a pilgrim, an enemy of all worldly superfluity, he left behind his bedding, his linen, everything, in [{201}] short, which in the eyes of the Tartars had the least appearance of refinement or luxury. Some days after, he rejoined his companions in the caravansery where the hadjis had promised to meet him. There Vambéry ascertained, to his great surprise, that the miserable garments which had disgusted him so much were the state robes of the dervishes; their travelling dress was composed of numerous rags, arranged in the most picturesque manner and fastened at the waist by a fragment of rope. Hadji Bilal, raising his arms in the air, pronounced the prayer of departure, to which all the assistants responded by the sacramental amen, placing the hand upon the beard.

Vambéry quitted Teheran not without sadness and misgiving. In this city, placed on the frontiers of civilization, he had found devoted friends; now, in the company of strangers, he was about to face at once the perils of the desert and those, more to be feared, which threatened him from the cruelty of the inhabitants of the cities. He was roused from these reflections by joyous ballads sung by many of the pilgrims, others related the adventures of their wandering life or boasted of the charms of their native country, the fertile gardens of Mergolan and Khokand. Sometimes their patriotic and religious enthusiasm led them to intone verses from the Koran, in which Vambéry never failed to join with a zeal which did honor to the strength of his lungs. He had then the satisfaction of observing the dervishes look at one another and say, in an undertone, that Hadji Rescind was a true believer, who, without doubt, thanks to the good examples before his eyes, would soon walk in the steps of the saints.

At the end of five days the pilgrims reached the mountain of Mazendran, the western slope of which extends its base to the Caspian sea. Here the sterility of the country yields to the freshest, the richest vegetation; splendid forests, prairies covered with thick grass, extend themselves everywhere before the charmed eye of the traveller, and from time to time the murmur of a waterfall delights his ear. The sight of this smiling country drove away all the sad presentiments which had possessed the soul of Vambéry; mounted upon a gently-treading mule, he arrives full of confidence at Karatèpe, where he is to embark upon the Caspian sea. There an Afghan of high birth, whom the pretended Reschid had met upon his journey, and who knew the consideration which he enjoyed at the Ottoman embassy, offered him the hospitality of his house. The news of the arrival of pilgrims had collected a great number of visitors; squatted along the walls of the houses, they fixed upon Vambéry looks of mingled distrust and curiosity. "He is not a dervish," said some, "you can see that by his features and complexion." "The hadjis," replied others, "pretend that he is a near relation of the Turkish ambassador." All then, shaking their heads with a mysterious air, said in an undertone, "Only Allah can know what this foreigner is after." During this time, Vambéry pretended to be plunged in a profound meditation; in which as a Protestant, he committed a grave imprudence, for the Orientals, liars and hypocrites themselves, cannot believe in frankness, and always infer the contrary of whatever is told them. These suspicions, moreover, had nearly frustrated at the outset the bold designs of the European. The captain of the Afghan ship, employed in provisioning the Russian garrison, had consented for a small sum to take all the hadjis in his ship across the arm of the sea which divides Karatèpe from Ashourada. But learning the reports which were in circulation regarding our traveller, he refused to permit him to embark; "his attachment for the Russians not allowing him," he said, "to facilitate the secret designs of an emissary of Turkey." In vain Hadji Bilal, Hadji Salih, and others of the caravan endeavored to change his [{202}] resolution. All was useless, and Vambéry was doubting whether he should not be forced to retrace his steps, when his companions generously declared that they would not proceed without him.

Toward evening, the dervishes learned that a Turcoman named Yakaub proposed from a religious motive, and without desiring any recompense, to take them in his boat. The motive of this unexpected kindness was very soon discovered. Yakaub, having drawn Vambéry apart, confessed to him in an embarrassed tone, which contrasted singularly with his wild and energetic physiognomy, that he nourished a profound and hopeless passion for a young girl of his tribe; a Jew, a renowned magician who resided at Karatèpe, had promised to prepare an infallible talisman if the unhappy lover were able to procure for him thirty drops of essence of rose direct from Mecca. "You hadjis," added the Tartar, casting down his eyes, "never quit the holy places without bringing away some perfume; and as you are the youngest of the caravan, I hope that you will comprehend my vexation better than the others, and that you will help me." The companions of Vambéry had in fact several bottles of the essence, of which they gave a part to the Turkoman, and this precious gift threw the son of the desert into a genuine ecstasy.

The voyagers passed two days on a kèseboy a boat provided with a mast and two unequal sails, which the Tartars use for the transport of cargoes. It was almost night when Yakaub cast anchor before Ashourada, the most southerly of the Russian possessions in Asia. The czar maintains constantly on this coast steamers charged with repressing the depredations of the Turkomen, which formerly inspired terror throughout the province. All natives before approaching the port of Ashourada must be provided with a regular passport, and must submit to the inspection of the Russian functionaries. This visit caused Vambéry some alarm; would not the sight of his features, a little too European, provoke from the Russian agent an indiscreet exclamation of surprise? and would not his incognito be betrayed? Happily, on the day of their arrival Easter was celebrated in the Greek Church, and, on account of this solemnity, the examination was a mere formality. The pilgrims continued their voyage, and landed the next day at Gomushtèpe, a distance of only three leagues from Ashourada.

II.

The hadjis were received by a chief named Khandjan, to whom they had letters of recommendation. The noble Turkoman was a man of about forty years; his fine figure, his dress of an austere simplicity, the long beard which fell upon his breast, gave him a dignified and imposing air. He advanced toward his guests, embraced them several times, and led the way to his tent. The news of the arrival of dervishes had already spread among the inhabitants; men, women, and children threw themselves before the pilgrims, disputing with one another the honor of touching their garments, believing that they thus obtained a share in the merits of these saintly personages. "These first scenes of Asiatic life," says Vambéry, "astonished me so much that I was constantly doubting whether I should first examine the singular construction of their tents of felt, or admire the beauty of the women, enveloped in their long silken tunics, or yield to the desire manifested by the arms and hands extended toward me. Strange spectacle! Young and old, without distinction of sex or rank, pressed eagerly round these hadjis covered yet with the holy dust of Mecca. Fancy my amazement when I saw women of great beauty, and even young girls, rush through the crowd to embrace me. These demonstrations of sympathy and respect, however, became fatiguing when we [{203}] arrived at the tent of the chief ishan (priest), where our little caravan assembled. Then began a singular contest. Each one solicited as a precious boon the right of receiving under his tent the poor strangers. I had heard of the boasted hospitality of the nomad tribes of Asia, but I never could have imagined the extent of it. Khandjan put an end to the dispute by himself distributing among the inhabitants his coveted guests. He reserved only Hadji Bilal and myself, who were considered the chiefs of the caravan, and we followed him to his ooa (tent)."

A comfortable supper, of boiled fish and curdled milk, awaited the two pilgrims. The touching kindness with which he had been received, the comfort by which he was surrounded, filled Vambéry with a joy which accorded ill with the gravity of his assumed character of dervish. His friend Hadji Bilal felt bound to advise him upon this subject. "You have remarked already," said he, "that my companions and I distribute fatiha (blessings) to every one. You must follow our example. I know it is not the custom in Roum (Turkey), but the Turkomen expect it and desire it. You will excite great surprise if, giving yourself out for a dervish, you do not take completely the character of one. You know the formula of this blessing; you must, then, put on a serious face and bestow your benedictions. You can add to them nefes (holy breathings) when you are called to the sick; but do not forget to extend at the same time your hand, for every one knows that the dervishes subsist by the piety of the faithful, and they never leave a tent without receiving some little present."

The Hungarian traveller profited so well by the advice of Hadji Bilal that, five days after his arrival at Gomushtèpe, a crowd of believers and sick people besieged him from the moment that he rose, soliciting, one his blessing, another his sacred breathing, a third the talisman that was to cure him. Thanks to the complaisance and marvellous tact which characterized him, Vambéry henceforth identified himself completely with the venerable personage of Hadji Reschid, and never during a period of two years escaped him the smallest gesture or word which could possibly betray him. His reputation for sanctity increased every day, and procured for him numerous offerings, which he received with a truly Mussulman gravity. This increasing confidence permitted the European to form with the Turkomen frequent intimacies, of which he profited to study the social relations of these tribes, to discover the innumerable ramifications of which they are composed, and to form an exact idea of the bonds which unite elements in appearance so heterogeneous and confused. But he was obliged to exercise great prudence; a dervish, wholly preoccupied with heavenly things, never ought to ask the smallest question in regard to affairs purely worldly. Fortunately, the Tartars, so terrible and so impetuous, when they have completed their forays, pass the remainder of their time in absolute idleness, and then they amuse themselves with interminable political and moral discussions. Vambéry, dropping his beads with an exterior of pious revery, lent an attentive ear to all these conversations, of which he never lost the slightest detail.

One thing which surprised him among the Turkomen was to see that if all are too proud to obey, no one seems ambitious to command. "We are a people without a head," they say; "and we wish no head. Every one is king in our country," Yet, notwithstanding the absence of all restraint, of all authority, these savage robbers, the terror of their neighbors, live together amicably, and we find among them fewer robberies and murders, and more morality than among the majority of the Asiatic people. [{204}] This is explained by the action of an all-powerful law, which exercises over the inhabitants of the desert more empire than religion itself; we speak of the Deb, that is to say, the custom, the traditions. An invisible sovereign, obeyed everywhere, it sanctions robbery and slavery, and all the prescriptions of Islam fall to the ground before it. "How," asked Vambéry one day of a Tartar famous for his robberies and his great piety, "how can you sell your Sunnite brother, when the Prophet has said expressly: Every Mussulman is free?" "Bah!" he replied, "the Koran, this book of God, is more precious than a man, and yet you buy and sell it; Joseph, the son of Jacob, was a prophet, and yet they sold him, and was he ever the worse for it?" The influence of Deb extends throughout central Asia; in converting themselves to the worship of Mohammed, the nomad tribes have taken only the exterior form; they adored formerly the sun, the fire, and other natural phenomena--they personify them to-day under the name of Allah.

Many ancient and singular customs are found everywhere in central Asia; marriage is accompanied by characteristic rites. The young girl, in her rich bridal costume, bravely bestrides a furious courser, whom she urges to his utmost speed; with one hand she holds the rein, with the other she presses to her bosom a lamb just killed, which the bridegroom, mounted also on a fast horse, endeavors to take from her. All the young people of the tribe take a part in the eager pursuit, and the sandy desert then becomes the theatre of this fantastic contest.

The ceremonies prescribed for funerals are not less singular. When a member of a Turkoman family dies, the mourners come every day for an entire year, at the hour when the deceased expired, to utter sobs and cries, in which the relations are bound to join. This custom seems to prove that the Tartars, superior in this respect to civilized people, consecrate to their dead a remembrance more profound and more durable; but, in fact, one must abate a little of this praise; the tears and prolonged mourning are only a matter of form, and Vambéry often could hardly suppress a smile when he saw the head of the family tranquilly smoking his pipe or enjoying his repast, interrupting himself now and then to join the noisy lamentations of the choir. It is the same with the ladies; they cry, they weep in the most lugubrious fashion, without ceasing to turn the wheel or rock the cradle. But what then? is not human nature the same everywhere, and do the Turkoman ladies differ so much from our inconsolable widows, to whom, as La Fontaine says with good-natured malice, "mourning very soon becomes an ornament."

Vambéry, venerated as one of the elect of the prophet, often passed his evenings among these Tartar families. Then, surrounded by a large audience, the troubadour, accompanying himself upon the guitar, chanted the poetry of Koroghi, of Aman Mollah, or more frequency of Makhdumkuli, the Ossian of the desert, whom his compatriots regard as a demigod. This holy personage, who had never studied in the colleges of Bokhara, received the gift of all science by a divine inspiration. He was one day transported in a dream to Mecca, in presence of the Prophet and of the first caliphs. Seized with respect and fear at the sight of this august assembly, he prostrated himself, and, throwing around him a timid look, perceived Omar, the patron of the Turkomen, who, with a benevolent air, signed him to approach. He received then the benediction of the Prophet, a light blow on the forehead, which awakened him. From this moment a celestial poesy flowed from his lips; he composed heroic hymns which the Tartars regard to-day as the most beautiful productions of the human mind.

[{205}]

About this time, a mollah having undertaken a trip to Atabeg and the Göklen, our traveller seized the occasion to examine the Greek ruins which perpetuate among these savage people the remembrance of the conquests of Alexander. He recognized the wall built by the Macedonian hero to oppose a barrier to the menacing stream of the desert tribes. The legend of the Turkomen shows how the oriental imagination clothes the events of history with poetic and religious fiction. Alexander, they say, was a profoundly religious Mussulman; and as the saints exercise all power over the invisible world, he commanded the spirits of darkness, and it was by his order that the genii built the sacred wall.

Notwithstanding the generous hospitality of Khandjan, Vambéry began to get tired of his residence at Gomushtèpe. The continual raids of the Turkomen peopled their tents with a crowd of Persian slaves, whose tortures revolted any one who had a spark of humanity. These unhappy beings, surprised for the most part in a nocturnal attack, were dragged from their families, and loaded with heavy chains which betrayed the slightest movement and hindered every attempt at flight. Khandjan himself possessed two young Iranians of eighteen and twenty years, and, singularly enough, this man, so good and so hospitable, overwhelmed these young men with injuries and insults on the slightest pretext. Our traveller could not, without betraying himself, manifest the least compassion for these poor slaves. Notwithstanding, the pity which they sometimes surprised in his looks induced them to address him. They begged him to write to their relatives, imploring them to sell cattle, gardens, and dwellings in order to release them from this frightful captivity; for the Turkomen often maltreat their prisoners merely in the hope of obtaining a great ransom for them.

Vambéry then learned with joy that the khan of Khiva, for whom the physicians had prescribed the use of buffalo's milk, had sent his chief of caravans to Gomushtèpe to buy two pair of these animals, in order to have them acclimated in his own country. To join an officer who knew the invisible paths of the desert better than the most experienced guides, was an unexpected good fortune for the pilgrims, and Vambéry urged Hadji Bilal to improve so good an opportunity; but Hadji Bilal was surprised at the impatience of his friend, and remarked that it was extremely childish. "It is of no use to be in a hurry," said he; "you will remain on the banks of the Gorghen until destiny shall decree that you quench your thirst at another river, and it is impossible to tell when the will of Allah will be manifested." This answer was not particularly satisfactory to Vambéry; but he could not attempt the desert alone; he was forced then to submit to the oriental slowness of his companions.

The little caravan was to return to Etrek, the capital of a tribe of warriors, to wait until the chief of caravans should join it. One of the most renowned chiefs of this tribe came just at this time to Gomushtèpe. His name was Kulkhan-le-Pir (chief). His sombre and wild physiognomy, little calculated to inspire confidence, never brightened at the sight of the pious pilgrims; nevertheless, out of regard for Khandjan, he consented to take the hadjis under his protection, recommending to them to be ready to start with him in two days, for he awaited in order to return to his tent at Etrek only the arrival of his son, who had gone on a raid. Kulkhan spoke of this expedition with the paternal pride which makes the heart of a European beat in learning that his son has covered himself with glory on the field of battle. Some hours later, the young man, followed by seven Turkomen, appeared on the banks of the Gorghen. A great crowd had gathered, and admiration was painted upon every face when the proud cavaliers threw themselves with their [{206}] prey, ten magnificent horses, into the midst of the river, which they crossed swimming. They landed immediately, and even Vambéry, in spite of the contempt with which these acts of pillage inspired him, could not take his eyes from these bold warriors, who, in their short riding-habit, the chest covered with their abundant curling hair, gaily laid down their arms.

About noon the next day the traveller quitted Gomushtèpe, and was escorted for a considerable distance by Khandjan, who wished to fulfil punctually all the duties of hospitality. It was not without heartfelt regret that he parted from this devoted host, from whom he had received so many marks of interest. The pilgrims travelled toward the north-east; their road, which led them from the coast, was bordered by many mounds raised by the Turkomen in memory of their illustrious dead. When a warrior dies, every man of his tribe is bound to throw at least seven shovelsful of earth upon his grave. So these mausoleums often appear like little hills. This custom must be very ancient among the Asiatics; the Huns brought it into Europe, and we find traces of it to-day in Hungary. Half a league from Gomushtèpe the little caravan reached magnificent prairies, the herbage of which, knee-high, exhaled a delicious fragrance. But these blessings of nature are thrown away upon the Turkomen, who, wholly occupied in robbery and pillage, never dream of enriching themselves by peaceful, pastoral occupations. "Alas!" thought our European, "what charming villages might shelter themselves in this fertile and beautiful country. When will the busy hum of life replace the silence of death which broods over these regions?"

Approaching Etrek, the landscape suddenly changes. This lonely verdure is exchanged for the salt lands of the desert, whose rank odor and repulsive appearance seem to warn the traveller of the sufferings which await him in these immense solitudes. Little by little Vambéry felt the ground become soft under foot; his camel slipped, buried himself at each step, and gave such evident signs of intending to throw him in the mud, that he thought it prudent to dismount without waiting for a more pressing invitation. After tramping an hour and a half in the mire the pilgrims reached Kara Sengher (black wall), where rose the tent of their host, Kulkhan-le-Pir. The district of Etrek is, to the populations of Mazendran and Taberistan, a by-word of terror and malediction. "May you be carried to Etrek," is the most terrible imprecation which fury can extort from a Persian. One cannot pass before the tents of the Turkomen of Etrek without seeing the unhappy Iranian slaves, wasted by fatigue and privations, and bent under the weight of their chains. But the nomad tribes of Tartary offer a singular mixture of vice and virtue, of justice and lawlessness, of benevolence and cruelty. Vambéry, in his character of dervish, made frequent visits among the Tartars. He always returned loaded with presents and penetrated with gratitude for their charitable hospitality. To this sentiment succeeded a profound horror at the barbarous treatment inflicted upon their slaves. At Gomushtèpe such a spectacle had already revolted him; and yet this city, compared to Etrek, might be considered the Ultima Thule of humanity and civilization.

One day, returning to his dwelling, Vambéry met one of the slaves of Kulkhan, who, in a piteous tone, begged him to give him to drink. This unfortunate being had labored ever since morning in a field of melons, exposed to the heat of a burning sun, without any other food than salt fish, and without a drop of water to quench his thirst. The sight of this poor sufferer, and of the cheers which ran down over his thick black beard, made Vambéry forget the danger [{207}] to which an imprudent compassion might expose himself. He gave his bottle to the slave, who drank eagerly and fled, not without having passionately thanked his benefactor.

Another time the European and Hadji Bilal called on a rich Tartar, who, learning that Vambéry was a disciple of the Grand Turk, cried, with great glee, "I will show you a spectacle which will delight you; we know how well the Russians and the Turks agree, and I will show you one o£ your enemies in chains." He then called a poor Muscovite slave, whose pallid features and expression of profound sadness touched Vambéry to the heart. "Go and kiss the feet of this effendi," said the Turkoman to the prisoner. The poor fellow was about to obey, but our traveller stopped him by a gesture, saying that he had that morning begun a great purification and that he did not wish to be defiled by the touch of an infidel.

At last a messenger came to inform the pilgrims that the chief of caravans was about to leave, and that he would meet them at noon the next day on the shore opposite Etrek. The hadjis therefore began their journey, escorted by Kulkhan-le-Pir, who, thanks to the introduction of Kulkhan, neglected nothing for the security of his guests. Now, as these districts are infested by brigands and very dangerous for caravans, the protection of this graybeard was very useful to the travellers. Kulkhan was, in fact, the spiritual guide and grand high-priest of these fierce robbers; he united to a character naturally ferocious a consummate hypocrisy which made him a curious type of the desert chiefs. One ought to have heard this renowned bandit, who had ruined so many families, explaining to his assembled disciples the rites prescribed for purifications, and telling them how a good Mussulman ought to cut his moustache, etc. A sort of pious ecstasy, a perfect serenity, the fruit of a good conscience, was visible meanwhile upon the countenances of these men, as if they already enjoyed a foretaste of the delight of Mohammed's paradise.

The chief of caravans now joined the pilgrims. Vambéry desired very much to win the good graces of so important a man, and was, therefore, much alarmed when he saw that this dignitary, who had received the other pilgrims with marks of great respect, treated him with great coldness. Hadji Bilal eagerly undertook the defence of his friend. "All this," he cried angrily, "is no doubt the work of that miserable Mehemmed, who, even while we were in Etrek, tried to make us believe that our Hadji Reschid, so holy and so learned in the Koran, was a European in disguise! The Lord, pardon my sins!" This was the favorite exclamation of the good dervish in his moments of greatest agitation. "Be patient," he added, addressing his companion, "once arrived at Khiva, I will set this opium-eater right." Mehemmed was an Afghan merchant, born at Kandahar, who had frequently met Europeans. He thought he discovered in Vambéry a secret agent travelling, no doubt, with great treasure, and he hoped, by frightening him, to extort from him considerable sums; but the European was too cunning to be taken in this trap, and he found a secure protection in his reputation for sanctity and in the generous friendship of Hadji Bilal.

This incident had no immediate consequences. The chief of caravans, who was now chief of the united caravans, ordered each pilgrim carefully to fill his bottle, for they would travel now many days without meeting any spring. Vambéry followed the example of his companions, but with a negligent air which Hadji Salih thought himself bound to reprove. "You do not know yet," said he, "that in the desert each drop of water becomes a drop of life. The thirsty traveller watches over his bottle as a miser over his treasure; it is as precious to him as his eye-sight."

They travelled the whole day over a sandy soil, at times slightly undulating, but where it was impossible to discover the least trace of a path. The sun alone indicated their course, and during the night the kervanbashi (chief of caravans) guided himself by the polar star, called by the Turkomen the iron pin, because it is motionless. Gradually the sand gave place to a hard and flinty soil, on which through the silent night resounded the foot-fall of the camels. At day-break the caravan stopped to take some hours of rest, and presently Vambéry perceived the kervanbashi engaged eagerly in conversation with Hadji Bilal and Hadji Salih, the subject of which their looks, constantly directed toward him, sufficiently indicated. He pretended not to observe it, and occupied himself with renewed earnestness in turning over the pages of the Koran. Some moments after his friends came to him, and said "his foreign features excited the distrust of the kervanbashi, for this man had already incurred the anger of the king because he had some years before conducted to Khiva a European, whom this single journey had enabled to put down on paper with diabolical art all the peculiarities of the country, and he never should be able to save his head if he committed another such blunder. It is with great difficulty," added the dervishes, "that we have persuaded him to take you with us, and he has made it a condition, first, that you shall consent to be searched, and secondly, that you will swear, by the tomb of the Prophet, that you will not carry about you secretly a wooden pen as these detestable Europeans always do."

These words, we may imagine, were not very agreeable to Vambéry, but he had too much self-control to permit his agitation to be seen. Pretending to be very angry, he turned toward Hadji Salih, and, loud enough to be heard by the chief of caravans, replied, "Hadji, you have seen me in Teheran, and you know who I am; say to the kervanbashi that an honest man ought not to listen to the gossip of an infidel." This pretended indignation produced the desired effect; no one afterward expressed a doubt in regard to the pilgrim. Vambéry could not resolve to keep his promise, and, whatever it might have cost him to deceive his friends, he continued to make in secret some rapid notes. "Let one imagine," says he, to excuse himself, "the latter disappointment of a traveller who arriving at last, after long efforts and great peril, before a spring for which he has eagerly sighed, finds himself forbidden to moisten his parched lips."

The caravan advanced slowly through the desert; in compassion for the camels, who suffered much from the sand, upon which they could hardly walk, the pilgrims dismounted when the road became very bad. These forced marches were a severe trial to Vambéry on account of his lameness; but he endeavored to forget, his fatigue and to take a part in the noisy conversations of his companions. The nephew of the kervanbashi, a Turkoman of Khiva, entertained a particular affection for him; full of respect for his character as dervish, and won by the benevolence of his looks, he took great pleasure in talking to him of his tent, the only manner in which the prescriptions of the Prophet permitted him to speak of the young wife whom he had left at home. Separated for a whole year from the object of his tenderness, Khali Mallah appealed to the science of the pretended hadji to pierce the veil which absence had placed between himself and his family. Vambéry gravely took the Koran, pronounced some cabalistic words, closed his eyes, and opened the book precisely at a passage in which women are spoken of. He interpreted the sacred text so as to draw from it an oracle sufficiently vague, at which the young Tartar was transported with joy.

On the 27th of May the travellers reached the table-lands of Korentaghi, a chain of mountains surrounded by vast valleys, to the west of which extend ruins probably of Greek origin. [{209}] The nomads who inhabit this district came in crowds to visit the caravan, and for some hours the encampment had the appearance of a bazaar. The merchants and drovers who accompanied the kervanbashi concluded important bargains with the natives, mostly on credit; but Vambéry was surprised to see the debtor, instead of giving the note as a guarantee to the creditor, tranquilly put it in his own pocket. Our European could not refrain from speaking of this, and he received from one of the merchants this answer of a patriarchal simplicity: "What should I do with the paper? it would not do me any good; but the debtor requires it in order to remind him of the amount of the debt and of the time when it is to be paid."

Two days after a dark blue cloud appeared in the horizon toward the north; this was Petit-Balkan, the elevation, the picturesque landscapes, and the rich mineral resources of which are celebrated in all Turkoman poetry. The travellers passed along the chain of mountains, perceiving here and there green and fertile prairies, and yet the profound solitude of these beautiful valleys filled the soul with a vague sadness. Beyond commences the Great Desert, where the traveller marches for many weeks without finding a drop of water to quench his thirst, or a tree to shelter him from the rays of the sun. In winter the cold is intense, in summer the heat; but the two seasons present an equal danger, and frequent tempests swallow up whole caravans under drifts of snow or whirlwinds of sand.

"In proportion," says Vambéry, "as the outlines of Balkan disappear from the horizon, the limitless desert shows itself, terrible and majestic. I had often thought that imagination and enthusiasm enter largely into the profound impression produced by the sight of these immense solitudes. I deceived myself. In my own beloved country I have often seen vast plains of sand; in Persia I have crossed the salt desert; but how different were my feelings to-day! It is not imagination, it is nature herself who lights the sacred torch of inspiration. The interminable hills of sand, the utter absence of life, the frightful calm of death, the purple tints of the sun at his rising and setting, all warn us that we are in the Great Desert, all fill our souls with an inexpressible emotion."

After travelling many days, the provision of water beginning to be exhausted, Vambéry knew for the first time the horrible tortures of thirst. "Alas!" he thought, "saving and blessed water, the most precious of all the elements, how little have I known your value! what would I not give at this moment for a few drops of your divine substance!" The unfortunate traveller had lost his appetite, he experienced an excessive prostration, a devouring fire consumed his veins, he sank upon the ground in a state of complete exhaustion. Suddenly he heard resound the magic words, "Water! water!" He looked up and saw the kervanbashi distribute to each of his companions two glasses of the precious liquid. The good Turkoman had the habit whenever he crossed the desert of hiding a certain quantity of water, which he distributed to the members of his caravan when their sufferings became intolerable. This unexpected succor revived the strength of Vambéry, and he acknowledged the justice of the Tartar proverb: "The drop of water given in the desert to the traveller dying of thirst, effaces a hundred, years of sin."

The next day numerous tracks of gazelles and wild asses announced to the travellers that springs were to be found in the neighborhood; thither they hastened to fill their bottles, and, relieved now from all anxiety lest water should fail them before their arrival at Khiva, they gave themselves up to transports of joyful enthusiasm. Toward evening they reached the table-land of Kaflankir, an island [{210}] of verdure in the midst of a sea of sand. Its fertile soil, covered with luxuriant vegetation, gives asylum to a great number of animals; two deep trenches surround this oasis, which the Turkomen say are ancient branches of the Oxus. The caravan, instead of going directly to Khiva, made a circuit to avoid a tribe of marauders; the first of June it arrived within sight of the great Tartar city, which, with its domes, its minarets, its smiling gardens, the luxuriant vegetation which surrounds it, appeared to the travellers, worn by the monotony of the desert, an epitome of the delights of nature and of civilization.

III.

On entering the city their admiration was somewhat lessened. Khiva is composed of three or four thousand houses, constructed of earth, scattered about in all directions and surrounded by a wall, also of clay, ten feet high. But at every step the pious Khivites offered them bread and dried fruits, begging their blessing. For a long time Khiva had not received within its walls so great a number of hadjis; every face expressed astonishment and admiration, and on all sides resounded acclamations of welcome. Entering into the bazaar, Hadji Bilal intoned a sacred canticle, in which his companions joined; the voice of Vambéry predominated; and his emotion was very great when he saw the surrounding crowd rush toward him, to kiss his hands, his feet covered with dust, and even the rags which composed his dress.

According to the usage of the country, the travellers returned immediately to the caravan which served as custom-house. The principal mehrum (royal chamberlain) fulfilled the functions of director; hardly had he addressed the usual questions to the kervanbashi when the miserable Afghan before spoken of, furious at having been thwarted in his avaricious designs, advancing, cried in a tone of raillery: "We have brought to Khiva three interesting quadrupeds, and a biped who is not less so." The first part of the expression, of course, alluded to the buffaloes which had been brought from Gomushtèpe; the second was pointed at Vambéry. Instantly all eyes were fixed upon him, and he could distinguish among the murmurs of the crowd the words: "Spy, European, Russian." Imagine his agitation! The khan of Khiva, a cruel fanatic, had the reputation of reducing to slavery or destroying by horrible tortures all suspected strangers. In this emergency Vambéry was not intimidated; often he had considered the possible consequences of his bold enterprise, and looked death in the face.

The mehrum, lifting his brows, considered the foreign countenance of the unknown, and rudely ordered him to approach. Vambéry was about to reply when Hadji Bilal, who did not know what was going on, eagerly entered to introduce his friend to the Khivite officer; the exterior of the Turkoman dervish inspired so much confidence that suspicions were instantly changed into respectful excuses.

This peril avoided, Vambéry could not deny that his European features raised in his way every moment new difficulties; he must have a powerful protector always ready to defend him. He presently remembered that an important man, named Shukrullah Bay, who had been for ten years ambassador to the sultan from the khan of Khiva, must know Constantinople and every official of that city. Vambéry thought he should find in this dignitary the support which he desired, and he repaired the same day to the medusse (college) of Mohammed Emin Khan, where he resided. Informed that an effendi, recently arrived from Stamboul, wished to see him, the ex-minister immediately appeared. His surprise, already very great, was not diminished when he saw enter a mendicant covered with [{211}] rags and frightfully disfigured; but after exchanging a few words with his strange visitor, his distrust vanished; he addressed him question after question regarding his friends whom he had left at Constantinople, and, from the mere pleasure of hearing him speak of them, he forgot to raise a doubt regarding the supposed quality of the traveller. "In the name of God, my dear effendi," said he at last, "how could you quit such a paradise as Stamboul to come into our frightful country?" The pretended Reschid sighed deeply. "Ah, pir!" he replied, putting a hand upon his eyes in sign of obedience. Shukrullah was too good a Mussulman not to understand these words; he was persuaded that his guest belonged to some order of dervishes, and had been charged by his pir (spiritual chief) with some mission which a disciple was bound to accomplish even at the peril of his life. Without asking any farther explanations, he merely inquired the name of the order to which Vambéry was attached. Vambéry mentioned the Nakish bendi, [Footnote 37] implying that Bokhara was the end of his pilgrimage, and he retired, leaving the Khivite minister marvelling at his learning, his wit, his sanctity, and his extensive acquaintance.

[Footnote 37: A celebrated order which originated in Bokhara, where its principal establishment still exists.]

The khan, hearing of the arrival of a Turk, the first who had ever come from Constantinople to Khiva, sent in all haste a yasoul (officer of the court) to give the European a small present and inform him that the hazret (sovereign) would give him audience the same evening, for he greatly desired to receive the blessing of a dervish born in the holy land. Our voyager, therefore, accompanied by Shukrullah Bay, who made it a point to present him, repaired to the palace of the formidable monarch. We will leave Vambéry to relate himself this curious interview:

"It was the hour of public audience, and the principal entrance and halls of the palace were filled with petitioners of every rank, sex, and age. The crowd respectfully made way at our approach, and my ear was agreeably tickled when I heard the women say to each other: 'See the holy dervish from Constantinople; he comes to bless our khan, and may Allah hear his prayer!' Shukrullah Bay had taken care to make it known that I was very intimate with the highest dignitaries in Stamboul, and that nothing should be omitted to render my reception most solemn. After waiting a few moments, two yasouls came to take me by the arm, and, with the most profound demonstrations of respect, conducted me in the presence of Seid Mehemmed Khan.

"The prince was seated upon a sort of platform, his left arm resting upon a velvet cushion, his right hand holding a golden sceptre. According to the prescribed ceremonial, I raised my two hands, a gesture which was immediately imitated by the khan and others present; then I recited a verse from the Koran, followed by a prayer much used beginning with the words: 'Allahuma Rabbina. ' I concluded with an amen, which I pronounced with a resounding voice, holding my beard with both hands. 'Kaboul bolgay!' (may thy prayer be heard), responded in unison all the assistants. Then I approached the sovereign and exchanged with him the mousafeha, [Footnote 38] after which I retired a few steps. The khan addressed me several questions regarding the object of my journey, and my impressions in crossing the Great Desert.

[Footnote 38: Salute prescribed by the Koran, during which the right and left hand of each party are placed flatly one upon the other. ]

"'My sufferings have been great,' I replied, 'but my reward is greater yet, since I am permitted to behold the splendor of your glorious majesty. I return thanks to Allah for this favor, and I see in it a good omen for the rest of my pilgrimage.'

[{212}]

"The king, evidently flattered, asked how long I proposed to remain at Khiva, and if I were provided with the necessary funds for pursuing my journey.

"'My intention,' I replied, 'is to visit before my departure the tombs of the saints who repose in the vicinity of Khiva. As to the means of pursuing my journey, I give myself no anxiety. We dervishes occupy ourselves very little with such trifles. The sacred breathing which I have received from the chief of my order suffices, moreover, to sustain me four or five days without any other nourishment; therefore the only prayer which I address to heaven is that your majesty may live a hundred and twenty years.'

"My words had gained the good graces of the khan; he offered me twenty ducats, and promised to make me a present of an ass. I declined the first of these presents, because poverty is the necessary attribute of a dervish; but I accepted the animal with gratitude, not without piously remarking that the precept of the Prophet requires that a white ass should be used for pilgrimages. The king assured me that I should have one of this color, and he put an end to the interview, begging me to accept at least during my short residence in his capital two tenghe (1 franc 50 centimes) a day for my maintenance.

"I retired joyfully, receiving at every step the respectful homage of the crowd, and regained my own dwelling. Once alone, I uttered a sigh of satisfaction, thinking of the danger which I had incurred, and the happy manner in which I had escaped it. This dissolute khan, savage and brutal tyrant, had treated me with unexampled kindness; I was now free from all fear, and at liberty to go where I liked. During the entire evening, the audience of the khan was present to my mind; I saw again the Asiatic despot, with his pallid countenance, his eyes deeply sunk in the orbits, his beard sprinkled with white, his white lips and trembling voice. So, I thought, Providence has permitted that fanaticism itself should serve as a bit to this suspicious and cruel tyrant."

It was soon understood in Khiva that the dervish of Constantinople was in great favor with the khan, therefore the notables of the city delayed not to overwhelm him with visits and invitations; the oulemas especially, anxious to enlighten themselves with his light, asked him a thousand questions regarding various religious observances. Vambéry, repressing his impatience, was obliged to spend whole hours instructing these fervent disciples on the manner of washing the feet, the hands, the face; explaining to them how, not to violate any precept, the true believers ought to sit down, to rise, to walk, sleep, etc. The pretended pilgrim, who was supposed to be a native of Stamboul, venerated seat of religion, passed for an infallible oracle, for the sultan of Constantinople and the grandees of his court are regarded at Khiva as the most accomplished observers of the law. They there represent the Turkish emperor as coiffé in a turban at least fifty or sixty yards long, wrapped in a long trailing robe, and wearing a beard which falls to the girdle. To inform the Khivites that this prince dresses like a European, and has his clothes cut by Dusautoy, would only excite their pious indignation; any one who would attempt to disabuse them on these points would pass for an impostor, and would only risk his own life. Vambéry was obliged to answer the most ridiculous questions: one wished to know if in the whole world there was any city to be compared to Khiva; another, if the meals of the grand sultan were sent to him every day from Mecca, and if it only took one minute for them to come from the Kaaba to the palace at Constantinople. What would these pious enthusiasts say if they could know with what honor Chateau-Lafitte and Chateau-Margeaux figure upon the table of the actual successor of the Prophet?

[{213}]

The convent which gave asylum to the pilgrims served also as a public square; it contained a mosque, the court of which, ornamented with a piece of water surrounded with beautiful trees, was the favorite lounge of all the idle people in town. The women came there to fill the heavy jugs which they afterward carried to their dwellings. More than one of these recalled to the European the daughters of his dear Hungary; he took great pleasure in watching them, and never refused them his blessing, his powder of life, or even his sacred breathing, which had the power of curing all infirmities. On these occasions, the sick person squatted upon the threshold of the door, the pretended dervish, moving his lips as if in prayer, extended a hand over the patient, then he breathed three times upon her and uttered a profound sigh. Very often the innocent creatures fancied that they had experienced immediate relief, so great is the power of the imagination!

During the time that Vambéry was at Khiva, a fair had assembled there from twenty leagues round all the rich natives. Most of these came to the markets not so much to buy and sell as to gratify that love of display so inveterate among the Orientals; their purchases were often limited to a few needles or similar trifles; but it was an excellent occasion to parade their beautiful horses, to display their richest clothes and their finest weapons. Khiva, moreover, is the centre of an active commerce; beside the fruits, which enjoy great renown, and are exported to Persia, Turkey, Russia, and China, the stalls of the fair contain excellent manufactured articles. Beside the urgendi tchapani, a kind of dressing robe made of woollen or silken stuffs of two colors, are displayed the linens of Tash-hauz, the bronzes of Khiva, muslins, calicoes, cloth, sugar, iron sent by Russia to be exchanged for cotton, silk, and furs, which the caravans deliver in the spring at the markets of Orenbourg, and in the autumn at those of Astrakan. The transactions with Bokhara are equally important: they export thither robes and linens, and receive in exchange tea, spices, paper, and fancy articles.

Vambéry, divided between the friendship of Hadji Bilal and his daily increasing intimacy with Shukrullah Bay, led a very agreeable life at Khiva. Unhappily this calm was troubled by the secret intrigues of the mehter (minister of the interior), who was a personal enemy of the Khivite ambassador. He persuaded the khan that our traveller was a secret agent of the sultan of Bokhara, and Seid Mehemmed resolved to have a second interview with the would-be dervish, and submit him to a strict examination. Vambéry, exhausted by the extreme heat, was taking a siesta in his cell when he was warned by a messenger to report himself to the sovereign. Surprised at this unexpected order, he departed with some anxiety. In order to reach the palace he was obliged to cross the grand square, where were assembled all the prisoners taken in a recent war against the neighboring tribe of the Tchandors, and the sight of these unfortunate beings impressed him most painfully. The khan in company with the mehter awaited his arrival; he overwhelmed him with artful questions, and said that, knowing how thoroughly versed he was in the worldly sciences, he should like very much to see him write some lines after the manner of Stamboul. The necessary materials having been brought, Vambéry wrote the following epistle, when, under pompous flowers of rhetoric, he slipped in a bit of raillery pointed at the mehter, who was extremely vain of his own beautiful writing:

[{214}]

"Most majestic, powerful, terrible, and formidable monarch and sovereign:
"Inundated with the royal favor, the poorest and most humble of your servants has, until this day, consecrated little time to the study of penmanship, for he remembers the Arab proverb: 'Those who have a beautiful handwriting have ordinarily very little wit.' But he knows also the Persian adage: 'Every defect which pleases a king becomes a virtue.' This is why he ventures respectfully to present these lines."

The khan, charmed with the pompous eloquence of our traveller, made him sit beside him, offered him tea and bread, and had with him a long political conversation, the subject of which had been agreed upon beforehand. In his quality of dervish, the adroit European maintained an austere silence. Seid Mehemmed drew from him with great difficulty some sententious phrases, which offered not the slightest pretext to the malicious designs of the mehter.

On leaving the royal audience, a yasoul conducted Vambéry to the treasurer to receive his daily allowance. He was obliged to cross a vast court, where a horrible spectacle awaited him. Three hundred Tchandors, covered with rags and wasted by hunger till they looked like living skeletons, were expecting the sentence which was to decide their fate. The younger ones, chained one to another by iron collars, were to be sold as slaves or given as presents to the favorites of the king. More cruel punishments were reserved for those whose age caused them to be considered as chiefs. While some of them were conducted to the block upon which already many heads had fallen, eight of these unhappy old men were thrown upon the ground while the executioner tore out their eyes. It is impossible to enter upon the frightful details of these barbarous punishments. Arriving at the office of the treasurer, Vambéry found him singularly occupied in sorting silken vestments of dazzling colors, covered with large golden embroidery. These were the khilat, or robes of honor, which were to be sent to the camp to recompense the services of the warriors; they were designated as robes of four, twelve, twenty, or forty heads. This singular mode of distinguishing them, which the designs upon the tissue in no way explained, having excited the curiosity of Vambéry, he inquired the reason. "What!" was the reply, "have you never seen similar ones in Turkey? In that case, come to-morrow to assist at the distribution of these glorious emblems. The most beautiful of these vestments are intended for those soldiers who have brought forty enemies' heads, the most simple for those who have furnished only four." In spite of the horror which this custom inspired, the European could not without exciting suspicion refuse the invitation thus extended to him. Accordingly, the next morning he saw arrive in the principal square of Khiva a hundred cavaliers covered with dust; each one of them led at least one prisoner fastened to the pommel of the saddle, or to the tail of his horse; women and children bound in the same manner making a part of the booty. Beside, all the soldiers carried behind them large bags filled with heads cut off from the vanquished. They delivered the captives to the officer in charge, and then emptied their bags, rolling out the contents upon the ground with as much indifference as if they had been potatoes. These noble warriors received in exchange an attestation of their great exploits, and this billet would give them a right after a few days to a pecuniary recompense.

These barbarous customs are not peculiar to Khiva; they are found in all central Asia. Tradition, law, and religion agree in sanctioning them. During the first years of his reign, the khan of Khiva, wishing to display his zeal for the Mussulman faith, proceeded with the utmost rigor not only against the heretic Tchandors, but also against his own subjects who were found guilty of the least infraction of the commandments of the Prophet. The oulemas endeavored to moderate the too ardent piety of the king; but, notwithstanding their intervention, not a day passes without [{215}] some person admitted to audience of the khan being dragged from the palace, after hearing the words, equivalent to his death-warrant: "Alib barin!" (take him away).

Notwithstanding the cruelties by which Khiva is disgraced, it was in this city that Vambéry passed, under the costume of a dervish, the most agreeable days of his journey. Whenever he appeared in public places he was surrounded by a crowd of the faithful, who heaped presents upon him. Thus, though he never accepted considerable sums, and though he shared the offerings of the pious believers with his brethren the hadjis, his situation was much improved; he was provided with a well-lined purse, and a vigorous ass; in short, he was perfectly equipped for his journey. His companions were very anxious to arrive at Bokhara, fearing that the heat might render it impracticable to cross the desert, and they urged Vambéry to terminate his preparations for departure. Before quitting Khiva our European wished to bid adieu to the excellent protector to whose hospitable reception he owed so much.

"I was deeply moved," he says, "to hear the arguments which the good Shukrullah Bay employed to dissuade me from my enterprise. He painted Bokhara under the most gloomy colors, the distrustful and hypocritical emir, hostile to all strangers, and who had even treacherously put to death a Turk sent to him by Reschid Pacha. The anxiety of this worthy old man, so convinced at first of the reality of my sacred character, surprised me extremely. I began to think that he had penetrated the secret of my disguise, and perhaps divined who I was. Accustomed to European ideas, Shukrullah Bay understood our ardor for scientific researches, for in his youth he had passed many years in St. Petersburg, and often also, during his residence in Constantinople, he had formed affectionate intimacies with Europeans. Was it on this account that he had manifested so warm a friendship for me? In parting from him I saw a tear glisten in his eye; who can tell what sentiment caused it to flow?"

Vambéry gave the khan a last benediction. The prince recommended to him on his return from Samarcande to pass through his capital, for he wished to send with the pilgrim a representative, charged to receive at Constantinople the investiture which the masters of Khiva wish to obtain from every new sultan. This was by no means the plan of our traveller. "Kismet," he replied, with his habitual presence of mind; a word altogether in the spirit of his character, and which signifies that one commits a grave sin when one counts upon the future.

---

[{216}]

From Aubrey De Vere's May Carols.
MATER DIVINAE GRATIAE.

The gifts a mother showers each day
Upon her softly-clamorous brood:
The gifts they value but for play,--
The graver gifts of clothes and food,--
Whence come they but from him who sows
With harder hand, and reaps, the soil;
The merit of his laboring brows,
The guerdon of his manly toil?
From him the grace: through her it stands
Adjusted, meted, and applied;
And ever, passing through her hands,
Enriched it seems, and beautified.
Love's mirror doubles love's caress:
Love's echo to love's voice is true:--
Their sire the children love not less
Because they clasp a mother too.
------
As children when, with heavy tread,
Men sad of face, unseen before,
Have borne away their mother dead--
So stand the nations thine no more.
From room to room those children roam,
Heart-stricken by the unwonted black:
Their house no longer seems their home:
They search; yet know not what they lack.
Years pass: self-will and passion strike
Their roots more deeply day by day;
Old servants weep; and "how unlike"
Is all the tender neighbors say.
And yet at moments, like a dream,
A mother's image o'er them flits:
Like hers their eyes a moment beam;
The voice grows soft; the brow unknits.
Such, Mary, are the realms once thine,
That know no more thy golden reign.
Bold forth from heaven thy Babe divine!
O make thine orphans thine again!

---

[{217}]

From The Month
PAMPHLETS ON THE EIRENICON.

The appearance of a work such as the "Eirenicon," from the pen of one in so conspicuous a position as Dr. Pusey, was sure to attract general attention, and to call forth a great number of comments and answers more or less favorable to it or severe upon it. It gives an occasion for, and indeed invites, the frankest discussion of a very wide range of most important questions; and in doing so it has rendered a great service to the cause of truth. Many of these questions are of that kind which those whom the "Eirenicon" itself may be supposed more particularly to represent have been in the habit of avoiding, at all events in public, although their own ecclesiastical position depended entirely upon them. It is a very great gain that these should now be opened for discussion, at the invitation of one who has long passed as a leader among Anglicans. Moreover, a book which handles so many subjects and contains so many assertions has naturally raised questions as to itself which require consideration. It is a comparatively easy matter to look on it as a simple overture for peace, or to speculate on the possibility of that "union by means of explanations" which Dr. Pusey tells us is his dearest wish. Even here we are directly met by the necessity of further investigations. Dr. Pusey puts a certain face on the Thirty-nine Articles, and on Catholic doctrines and statements with regard to the questions to which those Articles refer. Is he right in his representation either of the definitions of his own communion or of the support which those definitions may receive from authorities external to it? Is it true that the "Catholic" interpretation is the legitimate sense of the Articles? Is it true that that interpretation is supported by Roman and Greek authorities? Is there no statement, for instance, in the Council of Trent about justification to which any in the Anglican communion can object? It must be quite obvious that a great number of sanguine assertions such as these require examination in detail; and surely no one can complain if they are not admitted on Dr. Pusey's word. Then again, unfortunately, he was not content with painting his own communion in his own colors; he must needs give a description of the Catholic system also. He has told us--and we are both willing and bound to believe him--that he has not drawn this sketch in a hostile spirit; perhaps he will some day acknowledge--which is much more to the point--that he has drawn it in great and lamentable ignorance, the consciousness of which ought to have deterred him from attempting it. Surely there are some enterprises which are usually undertaken by none but the dullest or the most presumptuous of men. Such an enterprise is that of giving an account of a practical system which influences and forms the hearts and minds of thousands of our fellow-creatures, when we have ourselves lived all our days as entire strangers to it. If it be something simply in the natural order, such as the polity or the customs of a foreign nation, we do not feel so much surprise at the blunders made by the [{218}] writer who undertakes to describe them, as at his temerity in making the attempt. This is, of coarse, enhanced greatly in proportion as we ascend into the higher spheres of the spiritual and supernatural life. It is strange enough to see any sensible man writing as if he could fairly characterize the devotional sentiments and religious thoughts of men of a different belief; but it becomes something more than strange when this venturesome critic proceeds not only to characterize, but to condemn and to denounce in the strongest language that which he might in all reason and modesty have supposed himself, at least, not quite able fully to comprehend; and this at the very time that he is proposing peace.

We are not, however, here concerned with this more painful view of the subject. We are only pointing out that the elaborate chapter of accusation against the Catholic Church which Dr. Pusey has drawn up could not fail to be received with great indignation on the part of Catholics, and that the overtures which accompany it cannot be fairly dealt with until it has been thoroughly sifted by criticism as well as by controversy. How can we explain a "system" which we deny to exist? Of course, no Catholic will acknowledge Dr. Pusey's representation as anything but a monstrous caricature. Of course, also, the chief heads of accusation can be easily dealt with one by one, and positive statements given as to what is really taught, thought, and felt by Catholics with regard to them. But this leaves the book untouched. How came these charges to be made? What grounds has Dr. Pusey for asserting that to be true which we all know to be so false? Does he quote rightly? Has he understood the books he cites, where he has read them? And has he read them through? Are the authors whom he gives as fair specimens of Catholic teaching acknowledged as writers of credit, or are some of them even on the Index? Has he ever understood the Catholic doctrines on which he is severe, such as the immaculate conception and the papal infallibility, or the meaning of the Catholic authorities whom he seems to set in some sort of opposition to others, such as Bossuet and the bishops, whose answers he quotes from the "Pareri?" It is true that questions like this are to some extent personal; but Dr. Pusey makes it necessary to ask them, and he is the one person in the world who ought to wish that they should be thoroughly handled. We cannot believe that he approves of the tactics of some Anglican critics, who speak as if the ark of their sanctuary were rudely touched when it is said that he can be mistaken or ignorant about anything. He has never shown any lack of controversial courage. Up to the present time we are not aware of a single publication of any note from the Catholic side of the question which has not exposed some one or two distinct and important errors of fact, quotation, historical statement, or some grave misconception of doctrine on his part; and this, it is to be observed, has hitherto only been done incidentally by writers who have not addressed themselves to the systematic examination of the "Eirenicon" as a work of learning.

Lastly, this miscellaneous work has occasioned a call which, also, we are glad to feel sure, will be adequately answered; a call for calm and learned statements from Catholic theologians on some of the chief controversial questions touched on by Dr. Pusey. What is the real unity of the church? What is the true doctrine of her infallibility and of that of the Roman Pontiff? and how are the commonly alleged (though so often refuted) objections--as, for instance, that about what Dr. Pusey calls formal heresy of Liberius--to the met? What is really meant by the immaculate conception, and what was in truth the history of the late definition? [{219}] These, and a few more important matters--such as the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the historical truth as to the cases of Meletius and the African churches--will be treated at length in the forthcoming volume of essays announced under the title of "Peace through the Truth." The case of the Anglican ordinations has been incidentally raised by Dr. Pusey; but it will be natural for Catholic critics to wait for a volume on the subject which has been announced by Mr. F. G. Lee. As far as the alleged sanction of those ordinations by Cardinal Pole is concerned, Dr. Pusey does not seem inclined to raise the question again.

We have thus a tolerably large promise of work for theological writers and readers; and it cannot but be looked on as a good sign that so strong an impulse to controversial activity should have been given by one who has not hitherto been fond of inviting attention to the difficulties of his own position. It is but natural that the more solid and erudite works called forth by the "Eirenicon" should be the last to appear; and any one who has read but a few pages of that work will understand the difficulty which its writer has imposed on any conscientious critic by a frequently loose way of quoting, and an occasional habit of giving no authority at all for statements that certainly require more proof than a bare assertion. But we have already the beginning of a most valuable collection of publications by men of the highest position, dealing either with detached portions of Dr. Pusey's work or in a summary way with its general plan; and some service has been done by letters in the papers, such as those of Canon Estcourt and Mr. Rhodes. Father Gallwey's "Sermon" has been widely circulated; Canon Oakeley has given us an interesting pamphlet on the "Leading Topics of the Eirenicon;" Dr. Newman has written a letter to its author, and is understood to be preparing a second; and his grace the Archbishop of Westminster has dealt with several of Dr. Pusey's assertions in his "Pastoral Letter on the Reunion of Christendom." We propose now to deal shortly with some of these publications, which, though they belong to the earlier and more incidental stage of the controversy, are of the highest value in themselves and on account of the position of their authors. [Footnote 39]

[Footnote 39: We have found it impossible to deal with so important and authoritative a è as his Grace's "Letter" in our present paper.]

We must first, however, speak of a work put forth by Dr. Pusey as a sequel or a companion to the "Eirenicon." This is a republication (with leave of the author) of the celebrated Tract 90, preceded by an historical preface from Dr Pusey's own pen, and followed by a letter of Mr. Keble on "Catholic Subscription to the Articles," which was widely circulated, though not published, in 1861. Of the tract itself we need not, of course, speak. Dr. Pusey's preface, however, is open to one or two obvious remarks. It is remarkable for the manner in which he identifies himself with the Mr. Newman of the day, though it appears that the proof of the tract in question was submitted to Mr. Keble, and its publication urged by him, while Dr. Pusey himself was only made aware of its existence by the clamor with which it was received. Then, again, the remarkable difference of view between Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman as to the "Catholic" interpretation of the Articles forces itself again upon our notice. From the tract itself all through, and its explanations by its author at the time and since, it is perfectly clear that nothing more was meant by it than to claim such latitude of interpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles as would admit the "Catholic" sense on equal terms, as it were, with the anti-Catholic; and the same view is urged by Mr. Keble in his letter. The writer of the tract supposes that the Anglican formularies were drawn [{220}] up with designed ambiguity, in order to catch Catholic subscriptions. He compares the tactics adopted by the framers of the Articles to those which were followed by M. Thiers: "A French minister, desirous of war, nevertheless, as a matter of policy, draws up his state papers in such moderate language that his successor, who is for peace, can act up to them without compromising his own principles. . . . The Protestant confession was drawn up with the purpose of including Catholics; and Catholics now will not be excluded. What was an economy in the reformers is a protection to us" (Tract 90, conclusion). This is a plain common-sense view of the matter, and is abundantly supported by history. But it obviously leaves a stain on the Anglican establishment, which will appear of vital or of trifling importance according to the different views under which that community is regarded. If it is looked upon as a political and national organization, it was no doubt a stroke of prudence so to frame the formularies as to include both sides. If it is considered as a church of Christ, it can hardly be anything but discreditable that it should thus compromise divine truth. But Dr. Pusey's view of the "Catholic interpretation," as expressed both in his present preface and in the "Eirenicon," claims for it the exclusive title of the natural and legitimate sense. It may seem almost incredible that any one should maintain this; but so it is. Dr. Pusey thus speaks of the "Protestant" interpretations: "We had all been educated in a traditional system, which had practically imported into the Articles a good many principles which were not contained in them nor suggested by them; yet which were habitually identified with them. . . . . We proposed no system to ourselves, but laid aside piece by piece the system of ultra-Protestant interpretation, which had incrusted round the Articles. This doubtless appeared in our writings from time to time; but the expositions to which we were accustomed, and which were to our minds the genuine expositions of the Articles, had never before been brought into one focus, as they were in Tract 90. . . . Newman explained that it was written solely against this system of interpretation, which brought meanings into the Articles, not out of them, and also why he wrote it at all" (Pref., v.-vii.) Yet the words of Mr. Newman's explanation, which are quoted immediately after this last passage, distinctly contradict the interpretation of the tract put forward by Dr. Pusey. Mr. Newman says that the Anglican Church, as well as the Roman, in his opinion, has a "traditionary system beyond and beside the letter of its formularies. . . . . And this traditionary system not only inculcates what I cannot conceive (receive?), but would exclude any difference of belief from itself. To this exclusive modern system I desire to oppose myself; and it is as doing this, doubtless, that I am incurring the censure of the four gentlemen who have come before the public. I want certain points to be left open which they would close.. . . In thus maintaining that we have open questions, or, as I have expressed it in the tract, 'ambiguous formularies,' I observe, first, that I am introducing no novelty." He then gives an instance which shows that the principle is admitted. Again, he says: "The tract is grounded on the belief that the Articles need not be so closed as the received methods of teaching closes them, and ought not to be for the sake of many persons" (Letter to Dr. Jelf, quoted by Dr. Pusey, p. vii.)

It is obvious that the interpretations contained in the tract, however admissible on the hypothesis of their author, become little less than extravagant when they are considered in the light in which Dr. Pusey now puts them forward; and it is but fair to Dr. Newman and others to point out the change. Moreover, it is not [{221}] impossible that this republication of the tract, together with the avowals made in the "Eirenicon" as to the interpretation of the Articles, may be considered as a kind of challenge thrown out on the part of Dr. Pusey and his followers to the authorities of the establishment and the parties within it that are most opposed to "Catholic" opinions. It may be considered fairly enough that if this "claim to hold all Roman doctrine"--as far as those well-used words apply to it--is allowed to pass unnoticed, the position of the "Anglo-Catholic" clergy in the establishment will be made as secure as silent toleration on the part of authorities can make it. [Footnote 40] Be it so by all means; but let it be understood that the claim now made is quite different from that made by Mr. Newman in 1841; and that if it enjoys immunity from censure, on account of the far greater latitude now allowed in the establishment to extreme opinions of every color except one, it has still to free itself from the charge of being one of the most grotesque contortions of language that has ever been seriously advocated as permissible by reasonable men. One of the Articles, for instance--to take the case adduced by Canon Oakeley--says that "transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of the bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions." On the other hand, let us place the Tridentine Canon: "If any one saith that in the sacred and holy sacrament of the eucharist the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood--the species only of the bread and wine remaining--which conversion the Catholic Church most aptly calls transubstantiation, let him be anathema." (Sess. xiii.) Not only does Dr. Pusey assert that there is a sense in which the two statements are compatible, but he maintains that such an interpretation is the one single obvious grammatical and legitimate interpretation of the words of the Anglican Article. We can only imagine one process of reasoning by which this conclusion can be maintained; and we have little doubt that if Dr. Pusey's argument were drawn out it would come to this. The Articles must mean "Catholic" doctrine, whether they seem to do so or not, because the Anglican Church is a true and orthodox portion of the Catholic Church. And a part of the proof that she is such a portion consists in the fact that her formularies signify Catholic doctrine!

[Footnote 40: Canon Oakeley, in the pamphlet of which we shall presently speak, says of Dr. Pusey's interpretation: "Dr. Pusey's avowal, moreover, not merely involves the acceptance of that interpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles for which Mr. Newman was censured by nearly every bishop of the establishment, but goes beyond that interpretation in a Catholic direction, inasmuch as it comprehends the doctrine of transubstantiation, which Mr. Newman, I believe, never thought to be included within the terms of the Articles. It also goes beyond Mr. Newman's argument in his tract, in that it supports the Catholic sense of the Articles to be their obvious and only true sense. Instead of being merely one of the senses which are compatible with honest subscription. And here I must say, in passing, that I think Dr. Pusey somewhat unfair on Mr. Ward in attributing to him the unpopularity of Tract 90, since, in extending the interpretation of the tract to our doctrine of the blessed eucharist. Dr. Pusey is in fact adopting Mr. Ward's Construction of the Articles, and not Mr. Newman's" (p, 6).]

The other noticeable feature in Dr. Pusey's preface is an attempt to throw the blame of the undoubted unpopularity of Tract 90 upon Mr. Ward rather than on the tract itself. Mr. Ward was probably at one time the best-abused person of all the followers of the tractarian movement; and if powerful reasoning, keen logic, unflinching openness, and courageous honesty are enough to make a person merit wholesale abuse, Mr. Ward certainly deserved it. But to attribute the unpopularity of No. 90 to him is simply to forget dates and distort facts. [{222}] In 1841, when the clamor against No. 90 was at its height, Mr. Ward, though well known in Oxford for his decided opinions and thorough honesty in avowing them, and though highly influential (as he could not fail to be) over those who came within his reach, was hardly known in the country at large. Dr. Pusey's mistake has been pointed out by Canon Oakeley in the appendix to his pamphlet, of which we shall speak presently. He observes that the word "non-natural"--of which he gives a very plain and simple explanation, which quite vindicates it from the interpretation commonly put upon it--was not used till the appearance of "The Ideal of a Christian Church" in 1844.

Canon Oakeley's pamphlet, like everything that he writes, is graceful and courteous, lucid and cogent; and it ought to have all the greater weight with Dr. Pusey from the evident disinclination of the author to think or speak with severity. In fact, Dr. Pusey has already [Footnote 41] had occasion to correct an over-sanguine conclusion as to his own position which had been formed by Canon Oakeley in consequence of certain explanations which he addressed to a Catholic paper.

[Footnote 41: In his second letter to the "Weekly Register.">[

We think that the fullest credit should be given to Dr. Pusey for these explanations; but they must not be allowed to counterbalance assertions which he has never withdrawn, and seems never to have meant to withdraw. He has only negatively declared something about the intention he had in making them. He says they were not meant to hurt Catholics; he does not say that they were not meant to frighten Anglicans. We refer, of course, to the large number of pages which he has devoted to attacks on what he chooses to consider as the practical system of Catholicism, chiefly with regard to the cultus of our Blessed Lady, and which no Catholic can read without intense indignation. He has heaped up a number of extracts from books of very little authority, and put forward as characteristics of the Catholic system the pious contemplations of individuals, as well as tenets which have been actually condemned. The charge is urged with all the recklessness of an advocate, with eager rhetoric rather than calm argument, with all the looseness of insinuation and inaccuracy of quotation which mark the productions of a heated partizan. [Footnote 42]

[Footnote 42: A writer in the current number of "Macmillan's Magazine" (Feb., 1866) observes: "We could scarcely transcribe all that is here set forth without offending the religious taste of our readers, and appearing to gloat over the degradation of a church which, amidst all its aberrations and after all ita crimes, is a part of Christendom. We may reasonably hope, also, that there is something to be said upon the other side: for, without casting any suspicion upon Dr. Pusey's honesty, we must remember that he is personally under a strong temptation to scare the wavering members of his party from defection to the Church of Rome" (p. 277). This is the opinion of an intensely anti-Catholic writer; and it would be easy to quote scores of similar criticisms. A letter from Oxford, in the "London Review" of February 3, says: "It seems a gentle irony, certainly, to call a book an 'Eirenicon' which most mercilessly exposes the errors, perversions, and tendencies of those whom it proposes to conciliate. A great portion of the book might have been written by the most distinguished Papophobe--we will not say Dr. Cumming, for the style does not remind us of his publications." The writer in "Macmillan" adds an observation on another point which is well worthy of Dr. Pusey's consideration: "Dr. Pusey's argument, both against Mariolatry and Papal infallibility, appeals to principles essentially rationalistic, which are capable, as we conceive, of being turned with fatal effect against himself" (p. 230).]

No part of his book shows more earnestness than this. Such being the case, it seems to us very strange that any one should expect Catholics to be satisfied with a simple assurance from Dr. Pusey that "nothing was further from my wish than to write anything which should be painful to those in your communion." [Footnote 43]

[Footnote 43: Dr. Pusey to the "Weekly Register," Nov. 25, 1865.]

We suppose that if some one were to write a pamphlet of a hundred pages full of the hardest and most vulgar insinuations against something that Dr. Pusey holds dear and sacred, his opinion of it would hardly be changed by the assurance, unaccompanied by a single retraction, "I never meant to hurt your feelings." He would naturally ask in what sort of atmosphere such a person had lived, to be able to think that such things could be said without being "painful." He disclaims [{223}] all desire to "prescribe to Italians and Spaniards what they shall hold, or how they shall express their pious opinions." But he is not speaking of Spaniards or Italians only in many of the most offensive passages of his work. He says, for instance, that it "is a practical question, affecting our whole eternity: What shall I do to be saved? The practical answer to the Roman Catholic seems to me to be, Go to Mary, and you will be saved; in our dear Lord's own words it is, Come unto me; in our own belief it is, Go to Jesus, and you will be saved" (p. 182). Can anything be more shocking than the contrast insinuated here? Or, again, when he says in another place, "One sees not where there shall be any pause or bound, short of that bold conception, 'that every prayer, both of individuals and of the church, should be addressed to St. Mary?'" Dr. Pusey must be perfectly aware of the effect of words like these from him upon the mass of his readers. It is certainly no sufficient withdrawal of them to write a letter to a Catholic newspaper, of limited circulation, saying that he "never thought of imputing to any of the writers whom he quoted that they took from our Lord any of the love which they gave to his mother." Whatever he may think about the writers themselves, he certainly asserts in the face of the world that they teach others to do this. He asserts that there is a "system" in the Catholic Church, of which this is the effect. If he "had no thought of criticising holy men who held it," he still will not take Catholic explanations of their words, which show that they did not hold it; and his own words imply, or at all events admit of, a reservation, that such is the tendency of the system, from which certain individuals escape in consequence of their holiness. Now, it is this assertion about the system of the church which offends Catholics. They care little about their own "feelings;" they resent false charges against the church all the more when they proceed from one who professes to be nearer to them than others, and to be a lover of peace, and who might easily have satisfied himself that his accusations were groundless. People have not complained of Dr. Pusey's intention in saying these things, but of his having said them. They willingly accept his statement as to his intention; but misrepresentations retain their mischievous character till they have been formally withdrawn, whatever may have been the temper in which they have been put forward.

It is, moreover, obvious that this, which to ordinary eyes is the prominent feature in Dr. Pusey's volume, must be taken into account in all conclusions concerning the present state of mind among Anglicans that are founded upon the reception which the "Eirenicon" has met with among them. We think that there are but few among them, as there are certainly very few among Catholics, who attach much practical importance to the vague and dreamy ideas about corporate union by means of mutual explanations which are put forward in other parts of the work. It is perfectly clear that Dr. Pusey's account of the Articles would be repudiated at once by all the Anglican authorities; and equally clear that the points to which he still objects, such as the papal infallibility and the dogma of the immaculate conception, are among those which can never be conceded on the side of the church. The proposals for union are not, therefore, generally looked upon as matters for practical consideration; though, as Dr. Newman has remarked, they may hereafter lead to results of the highest importance. What has struck the Anglican public in the book is its attack on Catholicism, which has, no doubt, surprised Protestants as much as Catholics by its violence. We say, therefore, that to consider Dr. Pusey's unrebuked declaration about the possibility of union as a great sign of progress among Anglicans, without [{224}] taking into consideration the other features of the work which he has put forth, is to ignore the most essential circumstances of the case. Canon Oakeley compares the outcry with which similar declarations were once received on Mr. Ward's part and his own with the indifference and absence of opposition now evinced toward Dr. Pusey. It is true that the cases are in some respects parallel; but there is this vital difference, that neither Mr. Ward nor Canon Oakeley accompanied their declarations as to Roman doctrine with virulent abuse of Roman practice; and we may feel pretty certain that the "Ideal of a Christian Church" would never have been made the ground of an academical condemnation of its author if it had contained the hundred pages on the cultus of the Blessed Virgin on which Dr. Pusey has expended so much care, and which he has adorned with so much apparent erudition. Englishmen judge roughly, and in the main fairly; and they will look on the proposals for union as an amiable eccentricity in a writer who has pandered so lovingly to their favorite prejudices.

Canon Oakeley has drawn out very clearly another very important qualification, which must modify our feelings of joy at the apparent progress of Anglicans in general toward greater tolerance of Catholic opinions among themselves. He has shown that this seemingly good sign is in reality only an indication of increasing indifference to doctrine of every kind. It is the reflection on the broad mirror of public opinion of the uniformly latitudinarian tendency of the authorities of the establishment, as evinced in the succession of judicial decisions of which we have all heard so much. It is not wonderful that Puseyism should share in this universal indulgence. We have also to thank Canon Oakeley for a calm and forcible vindication of the Catholic devotion to our Blessed Lady, which has been made the subject of so violent an attack by Dr. Pusey--perhaps more in the form of an apology than was necessary--and for some very sensible remarks on the dream of "corporate union."

There is one writer in England whose words on this subject will be listened to with almost equal interest by Catholics and Protestants. The conflict passes into a new phase with the appearance of Dr. Newman upon the scene. It is "the great Achilles moving to the war." The gleam of well-worn armor flashes on the eye, and the attention of both armies is riveted on him as he lifts his spear. He cannot mutter his favorite motto:

for it is but lately that he struck down and kicked off the field a swaggering bully from the opposite ranks hardly worthy of his steel. It is different now. He will begin in Homeric fashion with a complimentary harangue to the champion on the other side; but then will come the time for blows--blows of immense force, dealt out with a gentle affectionateness which enhances their effect tenfold. Dr. Newman begins by a generous tribute to Dr. Pusey himself, and to those whom he may be supposed to influence. No one can speak more strongly on the paramount rights of conscience, which is not to be stifled for the sake of making a path easy or removing a wearisome difficulty. Dr. Pusey is allowed to have every right to mention the conditions on which he proposes union, though Dr. Newman does not agree with them, and thinks that he would himself not hold to them; he has also the right to state what it is that he objects to, as requiring explanation, in the Catholic system. But then the tone changes, and business begins. Dr. Newman tells his old friend in the plainest way that "there is much both in the matter and manner of his volume calculated to wound those who love him well, but truth more;" and he points out the [{225}] glaring inconsistency of "professing to be composing an Irenicon while treating Catholics as foes;" and characterizes, in his happy way, the proceeding of Dr. Pusey as "discharging an olive branch as from a catapult." The hundred pages on the subject of the Blessed Virgin which are contained in the "Eirenicon" are so palpably "one-sided" that no one can venture to deny it. Few have characterized them in stronger terms than Dr. Newman. "What could an Exeter Hall orator, what could a Scotch commentator on the Apocalypse, do more for his own side of the controversy by the picture he drew of us?" Further on he pointedly reminds Dr. Pusey that he all the time knew better. After a proof from the fathers as to the doctrine in question, he says, "You know what the fathers assert; but if so, have you not, my dear friend, been unjust to yourself in your recent volume, and made far too much of the differences which exist between Anglicans and us on this particular point? It is the office of an Irenicon to smooth difficulties" (p. 83); and again, "As you revere the fathers, so you revere the Greek Church; and here again we have a witness in our behalf, of which you must be aware as fully as we are, and of which you must really mean to give us the benefit" (p. 95); and again, "Then I think you have not always made your quotations with that consideration and kindness which is your rule" (p. 111). The calm gentleness of the language will certainly not conceal from Dr. Pusey the gravity and severity of the rebuke thus administered. Moreover, Dr. Newman has complaints of his own to urge. With the most questionable taste Dr. Pusey has actually brought "to life one of" Dr. Newman's "own strong sayings, in 1841, about idolatry;" he has at least been understood to father upon him the well-known saying, that "the establishment is the great bulwark against infidelity in this land;" he has used some words from Dr. Newman's notes to St. Athanasius in a collection of passages from the fathers, the apparent purpose of which is to defend some Anglican doctrine about the sufficiency of Holy Scripture against a supposed Catholic contradiction. Dr. Newman also most clearly distinguishes his own intention in publishing Tract 90 from that of Dr. Pusey in its recent republication.

The introduction to the letter before us concludes with a passage of singular interest, in which Dr. Newman vindicates the right of a convert to speak freely about the system of the church to which he has submitted. We must confess that we hardly understood the passages in Dr. Pusey's work, to which reference is here made, as denying the right of free comment to a convert, in the sense in which Dr. Newman affirms it. Dr. Pusey has a standard and measure of his own (external to the Anglican establishment), by which he criticises, approves, or condemns this or that feature in it; and he distinctly contemplates at least the possibility of his being driven to quit it by its formal adoption of heresy. Certainly, to submit to the Catholic Church, and yet retain the right of measuring her in such a way by an external standard, would be a contradiction in terms. But this does not touch the right of a convert either to choose freely, according to his own tastes and leanings, among those varieties of devotion and practice which the church expressly leaves to his choice, or to express his opinion on such subjects (so that it be done with charity), or on any other matters which fall within the wide and recognized range of open questions. If Dr. Pusey meant to deny this right, he will be convinced by the frank use made of it by Dr. Newman in the passage before us. No one, certainly, will assail him as unorthodox; yet he takes his stand openly on one particular side with regard to some of the moot questions of the day, as to which certainly a large [{226}] number of English Catholics will be as ready to say that they do not altogether agree with him as to acknowledge that he has a perfect right to the opinions which he expresses. Perhaps we should rather say that they will profess their admiration for the authors whom he so far at least disavows as to question their right to be treated in controversy as the legitimate and exclusive representatives of English Catholicism; for we need not understand Dr. Newman's words about the late Father Faber and the editor of the "Dublin Review" as meaning more than this; and his point, as against Dr. Pusey, is fully secured by the indisputable fact that those distinguished men have never considered themselves, or let others consider them, as such representatives.

The greater part, however, of Dr. Newman's present letter is given to an exquisite defence of Catholic doctrine and devotion as regards our Blessed Lady. Its power and beauty are so great as to fill us with inexpressible sadness at the thought that Dr. Newman has written comparatively so little on similar subjects since he has been a Catholic. This short and very condensed sketch on one particular point has given him an opportunity of exercising, on however limited a scale, those powers as to which he is simply unrivalled. There is the keen penetration of the sense of Scripture, and of the relation between different and distinct parts of the Holy Volume. After putting forward the patristic view of our Blessed Lady as the second Eve, Dr. Newman has occasion to defend that interpretation of the vision of the woman in the Apocalypse which understands it of her. This has given him occasion to explain how it is that this interpretation may be the true one, although there is no great amount of positive testimony for it in the fathers, and to refute from the general principles of scriptural language that which looks upon the image as simply a personification of the church. This passage is a real and great gain in scriptural interpretation. Then, again, here is the masterly and discriminating erudition, not dealing with the fathers as an ill-arranged and incoherent mass of authorities, but giving to each witness his due place and weight, pointing out what parts of the church and what apostolical tradition he represents, and blending the different sufferages into one harmonious statement. History is brought in to trace the gradual development of devotion on points as to which doctrine, on the other hand, was always uniform; and to give a natural and simple explanation of the chronological order in which the heart, as it were, of the church seems to have mastered the different portions of the wonderful deposit which the apostles sowed in her mind. The effect of Dr. Newman's explanation of the comparatively later growth of certain devotions, which in themselves might have been expected to precede others, is not only to remove the apparent difficulty, but to make every other view appear more difficult than that which he gives. Equally beautiful and convincing is his explanation in the appendix of the historical account which may be given of the strange sayings of certain fathers as to our Blessed Lady having possibly fallen into faults of infirmity. Some most accurate and delicate tests for the discernment of a real tradition are here given, as well as reasons for the apparent absence of such a tradition in a special case. Dr. Newman is one of the few writers who show us, first, that they thoroughly understand a difficulty or an objection; then, that they can make it even stronger; and then, that they can not only say something against it, or crush it, but even unravel it, and show that it was to be expected. In every one of these respects Dr. Pusey is his exact contrary. Then again, Dr. Newman brings together a series of passages from the fathers of the "undivided church"--to use the now term invented, we believe, by Mr. Keble--of which, of course, [{227}] Dr. Pusey was aware, but of which he has said nothing in his "Eirenicon." These testify amply not only to the doctrine but to the devotion of the fourth and fifth centuries as to our Blessed Lady. He is, of course, sparing of quotations in a work like the present; but he crowns his argument from authority by a number of passages not from popular books of devotion among the Greeks, but from their liturgies and authoritative formularies--on which Dr. Pusey would have founded a strong argument to the effect that our Lady is elevated to the place of our Lord, if he had been able to find them in circulation among Catholics. In fact, a number of formal Greek devotions end with the words, "through the Theotocos," instead of "per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum." The contrast between the cogency and appositeness of every word of Dr. Newman's few quotations (almost universally given at length), and the utter illusiveness and bewildering misapplication of the clouds upon clouds of citations paraded in Dr. Pusey's volume, is wonderfully striking. Nor, again, is the difference less great between the two when a personal remark has to be made. Dr. Newman has no hard words for any one. He does not shrink from pointing out faults, as we have already said. He tells Dr. Pusey plainly enough that he does not think that he even understands what the immaculate conception means; and when he speaks of Anglicans being ignorant of the Catholic doctrine of original sin, he seems carefully to omit exempting Dr. Pusey from the general statement. He says again pointedly, "He who charges us with making Mary a divinity is thereby denying the divinity of Jesus. Such a man does not know what divinity is." He complains of the unfairness--of which, we are sorry to say, Dr. Pusey seems habitually guilty--of taking a strong and apparently objectionable passage from an author who, either in the immediate context or elsewhere, has qualified it by other statements, which any one but a partizan writer would feel bound to take into consideration and to place by its side, without giving the reader any intimation that such qualifications exist. "When, then, my dear Pusey, you read anything extravagant in praise of our Lady, is it not charitable to ask, even while you condemn it in itself, Did the author write nothing else?" (p. 101). He refuses to receive Dr. Pusey's collection of strong passages as a fair representation of the minds of the authors from whom they are quoted. He speaks of their "literal and absolute sense, as any Protestant would naturally take them, and as the writers doubtless did not use them" (p. 118). And again: "I know nothing of the originals, and cannot believe that they have meant what you say" (p. 120). But with all this strong and decisive language, which we may be sure is the very gentlest that he can use, and implies an estimate of the "Eirenicon" by no means in accordance with that of its admirers, he is so uniformly calm and affectionate in manner that we cannot but hope that Dr. Pusey and others who think with him will be won over to think more seriously of the extreme gravity of their step in casting forth upon the world of English readers so extremely intemperate an accusation against the Catholic Church as that which they have put in circulation. Nor can we abandon the hope that they will listen to Dr. Newman's clear and unanswerable statement of the doctrine of the fathers as to our Blessed Lady, and see how truly he has pointed to the flaws and defects in their own thoughts with regard to her. They will certainly be hardly able to deny that they have misunderstood not only the immaculate conception, against which they have talked so loudly, but even, it may be, original sin itself; nor do we think that it can be questioned that he has put his finger upon the fundamental error--not to say heresy---to which all their low conceptions as to the Blessed Mother of God [{228}] are to be assigned as their ultimate cause. Dr. Pusey, as Dr. Newman remarks, seems to have no idea that our Blessed Lady had any other part or position in the incarnation than as its physical instrument--much the same part, as it were, that Juda or David may have had. The fathers, on the contrary, from the very first, speak of her "as an intelligent, responsible cause of our Lord's taking flesh;" "her faith and obedience being accessories to the incarnation, and gaining it as her reward" (p. 38). Dr. Newman insists on this vital and all-important difference more than once, and seems to consider it the explanation of the strange blindness of these students of antiquity. If they can once gain a new and more Catholic idea as to that which is the foundation alike of our Blessed Lady's greatness and the devotion of the church to her--and certainly they must be very blind or very obstinate not to see the reasons for such an idea in Dr. Newman's pages--then the "Eirenicon" will have produced incidentally a far greater blessing to themselves and others than if its strange interpretation of the Anglican Articles had been allowed as legitimate in England, and there had been half a score of Du Pins in France ready to enter into negotiations with the Archbishop of Canterbury on the basis of its propositions. These good men have in fact been living and teaching and studying the fathers with one of the great seminal facts, so to speak, of Christianity absent from their minds or entirely undeveloped in them. "It was the creation of a new idea and a new sympathy, a new faith and worship, when the holy apostles announced that God had become incarnate; we a supreme love and devotion to him became possible, which seemed hopeless before that revelation. But beside this, a second range of thoughts was opened on mankind, unknown before, and unlike any other, as soon as it was understood that that incarnate God had a mother. The second idea is perfectly distinct from the former--the one does not interfere with the other." We conceive that these words will fall strangely on the ears of Dr. Pusey, though they might not perhaps do so on those of the author of the "Christian Year" and the "Lyra Innocentium;" and if they do so, after the incontestable proof which Dr. Newman has adduced from the early fathers of their view of the position of our Blessed Lady in the economy of the incarnation, it will only remain for Dr. Pusey either to confute that proof or to acknowledge that he has been reasoning on that great mystery without the guidance of the church, deaf to the teaching of the fathers, and that he has incurred the usual fate of men who so reason. May the prayers of the Blessed Mother, against whose honor he has raised his voice so harshly, save him from closing his eyes still more firmly!

It appears to be one of the characteristics of Dr. Newman to look at particular questions and phases of opinion with regard to a wider and more comprehensive range of thought than other men. Possibly his retired position favors this habit of mind; but it is, of course, far more naturally to be attributed to a loftier intellectual stature and a wider knowledge of history than others possess. Such a man is eminently fitted for a controversy like the present, in which the word peace has been blurted forth in so uncouth a manner, while yet it is not the less the expression of the real and powerful longings of a thousand hearts. It is a most unpromising overture, but it is an overture nevertheless. Dr. Newman is not only fitted to deal with it on account of his tender and large sympathies, and of the affectionate solicitude with which he has always treated his former friends; he is able also not indeed to go to the very verge of Catholic doctrine for their sakes, or to encourage delusive hopes of a compromise which would patch up rather than unite, but to speak with calm [{229}] accuracy, looking on his own times as a philosophical historian of the church may look at them by-and-bye, and point out what may be accidental, transient, local, in the features of the religion of the present day. No one can be less inclined to exaggerate, for instance, the differences between English and Italian devotion; and we have seldom felt ourselves in a more Italian atmosphere, out of Italy, than in the oratory at Edgbaston. But he is not afraid of giving full weight to national differences of character, nor of avowing himself a hearty Englishman. In the same way, without going into the question of fact as to alleged extravagances--which, after all, is of no real cogency in the argument--he is ready to admit that there may be such, and puts forward a simple common-sense argument to show that such may be expected in the living working of energetic ideas generally, and especially of such ideas in matters of religion, which acts on the affections. This is the true philosophical answer; and it by no means excludes other answers that might be given to particular charges, which might be proved to be false in fact, or to apply to matters so grave as that the church would never be allowed to permit the alleged corruption.

Dr. Newman never shrinks from allowing the full force of any principle that he has laid down. Thus, he has distinguished between faith as to our Blessed Lady's position in the kingdom of her Son and the devotion to her founded upon that faith. The faith may have been from the beginning, and actually was so, as he proves from the early fathers; but the full devotion may not all at once have been developed; or again, it may have been checked in particular countries at a particular time, and so make no show in the writings of some fathers of that age, in consequence of the baneful influence of a prevalent heresy which cut at the faith itself. This, which is really almost self-evident, enables him not only to explain the passages in St. Chrysostom and St. Basil which are sometimes objected to, but to grant that there are no certain traces of devotion, strictly so called, to our Blessed Lady in the writings of others beside these. There need not be, according to his principles. It must be remembered that all these statements admit of great development and explanation; they are germs of thought, and are only put forward most concisely in Dr. Newman's present letter. It is more to our present purpose to observe how ready he is to look through the cloud of charges, great and small, which Dr. Pusey has blown in the face of Catholics, and to discern in the book of his old friend a new and important turning-point in the Anglican controversy. He thinks that the indignation of Catholics has led them in consequence to misconceive Dr. Pusey, so as not, it would seem, to give him credit for really pacific intentions. We think that no one has denied--what, indeed, it does not become a critic to question--the reality of a purpose distinctly avowed; but at the same time we must repeat that it has never been denied by Dr. Pusey, nor do we think it ever can be denied, that the book was written with a clear and distinct intention so to represent Catholicism as to deter people from submitting to it except on certain terms pointed out by the author. Possibly Dr. Newman only means that Catholics have been more alienated by Dr. Pusey's most unhandsome attack than attracted by his professions of friendship; and certainly never was a friendly expostulation, never was an earnest request for explanation on certain points which appear to be difficulties in the way of a much-desired union, proposed in a way less calculated to conciliate. Dr. Newman, therefore, neither wonders nor complains at the strong feeling with which the "Eirenicon" has been received; but he looks beyond the present moment, and, recalling the former phases of opinion as to [{230}] Catholicism which have prevailed among Anglicans, he sees in Dr. Pusey's proceeding nothing less than the putting "the whole argument between you and us on a new footing"--a footing which may really and profitably be used by those who desire peace. No English Catholic but will most heartily rejoice in this statement of Dr. Newman; and surely one of our first feelings must be that of thankfulness that he is among us at a time like this, and that circumstances will give him a more patient hearing and a more ready acceptance, on the part of those whose souls may be staked on the issue of this controversy, than he might otherwise meet with. From him, at least, Anglicans will hear no extreme or novel doctrine; him, at least, they will never accuse of not loving everything that is English. He, if any one, may convince them that no true child of the "undivided church" would be found at the present day outside the communion of the Holy See; that the church is the same now as she ever was, and as she ever will be; that she can never compromise with her enemies, though she yearns with unutterable love to take back every wanderer to her heart.

Experience has happily shown that the great Shepherd of souls leads men on in a way they neither discern nor desire, when they have once set themselves to wish and pray for greater light; and that prophecies of ill and suspicions of sinister purposes, which have not lacked ample foundation, have yet been often defeated in the indulgent dispensations of grace. Nor, indeed, at the present time, are all the signs of the sky evil. In its most disagreeable and inexcusable features the "Eirenicon" is not, we are convinced, a fair representation of the mind of a great number who might commonly be supposed to sympathize with its author. He has put himself for the moment at their head; and they are, of course, slow to repudiate his assistance; but we do not believe that the earnest men who publish so many Catholic devotions, and who, however mistakenly, attempt to reproduce in their own churches the external honors paid by Catholics to him whom they also think that they have with them, would willingly make themselves responsible for the hundred pages with which Dr. Newman's present pamphlet is engaged. The advance toward Catholicism among the Anglicans has, in fact, left Dr. Pusey some way behind other and younger men. Even as to himself, he is hardly further away than others have been who are now within the church.

Only it must not be forgotten that the largest and most charitable thoughts as to the meaning and intentions of individuals, and the most hopeful anticipations as to the ultimate result of their movements, do not exhaust the duties imposed upon Catholic writers at the present moment. Let us see ever so much of good in demonstrations such as this, and believe that there is a still greater amount of good which we do not see. We may forbear to press men harshly, to point out baldly the inconsistencies of their position; we may put up with the rudeness of the language in which they propose peace. They may be haughty and ungenerous now; but this is not much to bear for the sake of that unity which those who know it love better than those who are strangers to it. Let us be ready, as far as persons are concerned, to be tender in exposing faults even wanton, and misconceptions which, as we think, common industry and fairness might have obviated. For Dr. Pusey himself we can wish no severer punishment than that he should be able some day to look upon his own work with the eyes of a Catholic. He has himself shown us, by the use which he has made of old expressions of Dr. Newman and others, who have long since repudiated them, that the retraction of charges against the Catholic Church by their authors does not prevent [{231}] others from repeating them. We are sorry to say--what we still believe will be acknowledged as true by all who have been at the pains--pains not taken by some who have written on this subject--of not merely considering the animus and motives of Dr. Pusey, but of examining his book in detail, and taking its measure as a work of erudition and controversy--that, unattractive in style, rambling, incoherent, vague, and intentionally "loose" as it is, it has one great quality, however unintentional--that of being a perfect storehouse of misrepresentation. We speak simply as critics, and we disclaim all attempts to account for the phenomenon. It contains an almost unparalleled number of misstatements of every kind and degree. Its author's reputation will give weight and currency to these. Though never perhaps likely to be a popular book, it will still take its place in Protestant libraries, and will be much used in future controversies. No one can tell how often we shall have certain extraordinary statements about the sanctification of the Blessed Virgin, her active and passive conception, the protest of the Greek Church against the doctrine, Bellarmine's assertion about general councils, transubstantiation, extreme unction, and the like, brought up against us; and the erroneous conclusions founded upon them cannot be neglected by the defenders of Catholic truth. It is, therefore, essential not that Dr. Pusey should be attacked in an unkindly spirit, but that his book should be handled critically, and, as far as may be, whatever it contains of misstatement, misquotation, unfair insinuation and conclusion catalogued and exposed. It must be remembered that there is a great demand for the materials of anti-Catholic controversy. Dr. Pusey does not subscribe to the societies which mostly hold their meetings in Exeter Hall in the month of May; but he might well be made a life-governor of all of them in consideration of this book. It will be used by the zealots who try to win the poor peasants of Connaught to apostasy by means of food and clothing, and by the more decorous "Anglo-Continentals," who are just now rubbing their hands at the prospects of infidelity in Italy. Alas! it not only teems with snares for the learned and conscientious, but it is full of small insinuations for the ignobler herd of paid agents and lecturers--"what the poorer people believe in Rome," what Catholic churches are called in south India, what Cardinal Wiseman is reported to have said of Archbishop Affré, "who died in recovering his people at the barricades." These things may be passed by as simply faults of taste; but the pretensions of the book to learning, and its historical and doctrinal statements, cannot be admitted without sifting. Dr. Pusey has imposed an unwelcome task on Catholic critics. At the very time that they would be conciliating his followers, they are forced to attack him. It has seemed to us indeed that ordinary care in examining authorities, an attention to the common-sense rule that strangers cannot understand a system from without, the use of the many means at his disposal of ascertaining the Catholic meaning of Catholic language, more self-restraint in assertion, in urging arguments that appeared telling and conclusions that were welcome to himself, and somewhat less of confidence in his own attainments as a theologian, would have spared those who wish him well this painful undertaking at a time when they would gladly say no word that may sound harsh to his ears. But, after all, truth is more precious than peace, and peace can only be had through the truth; and we can cordially return to Dr. Pusey the assurance which he himself has proffered to Catholics, that those engaged in the ungrateful task of subjecting his volume to the analysis of criticism have no intention whatever of wounding his feelings.

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